


Fury - Book One | Part Two

by Umbrasylph



Series: The Umbra [2]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-21 23:42:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11955180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbrasylph/pseuds/Umbrasylph
Summary: Too lazy, look at first part.





	Fury - Book One | Part Two

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read the first part yet, go do it here: 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/11796921 
> 
> Again, rolling out by chapter.

Chapter 44

Feather Two

 

            Umbreon took off from an airport near Ivensir in Arizona. They had just stolen more fuel in the early morning light and were making their way towards Colorado, where the championship was being held. The weak light of the morning made way to full sunlight as they approached the Indigo Plateau. They had been flying for only a couple of hours.

            Umbreon descended as they neared the stadium.

            “What are you doing?” Sylveon asked.

            “Making sure everyone here knows were back!” Umbreon said.

            “And how are you doing that?” Pidgeotto asked.

            “You’ll see.”

            Umbreon flew lazily over the stadium at 1,000 feet. He was only going 300mph. The stadium was full because of the opening ceremony. To the people on the ground, it looked like just another plane flying over. Umbreon continued to fly past.

            “Wow,” Pidgeotto said sarcastically, “That was some show.”

            “You think I’m done?” Umbreon asked.

            Without waiting for a response, Umbreon back and the plane’s nose rose. The plane entered a vertical climb like when they were escaping from the jet. Umbreon reduced throttle as they entered it and deployed full flaps as their speed fell. He pulled back once again and the plane’s nose whipped around to face the ground.

            Umbreon retracted the flaps and increased the throttle to full as he aimed the nose down at the stadium. The plane gained speed fast as they dove. The stricter got closer and closer. Umbreon made sure to wait as long as he could before he pulled up. The plane dipped below the walls of the top of the stadium at the bottom of its dive before it rose and flew away. The engines drowning out all other noise.

            “Nice,” Pidgeotto said as they flew away.

            The sound of the engines decreased as Umbreon reduced the throttle and flew on toward the airport. Suddenly, the pitch of engine two sounded off. It felt uneven and the smooth sound of the engine was traded with a rough sound. Sylveon and Pidgeotto noticed too.

            “Is something wrong?” Sylveon asked as he looked out of the cockpit towards engine two.

            “Yes, but it shouldn’t be too bad,” Umbreon responded, unalarmed.

            Umbreon reached to reduce the throttle for engine two to reduce the strain on it. The moment he touched, there was a small explosion. Umbreon slammed the throttle to zero, knowing what was going on. He looked towards engine two to see a small trail of fire streaming out of it. A few pistons had been blown out of it. Umbreon cut off the fuel supply and the engine stopped, along with the fire. Black scarred the white paint. The engine had been damaged by the stresses Umbreon had been putting on it for quite some time.

            “Sylveon, I need you to feather engine two. It’s under that red cover there. It’s change the pitch of the propellers to reduce drag. We can fly on one engine no problem,” Umbreon said.

            Sylveon rose the small cover and reached to flip the switch for engine two. Shaken up by the explosion, his paw slipped and hit the switch for engine one instead. The engine’s fuel supply was cut and the propeller stopped spinning.

            Umbreon felt the plane slow as the thrust decreased to zero.

            “Okay,” Umbreon said, “Flip the switch again for engine one and then switch engine two.”

            Sylveon hit the correct switched this time and the propeller for engine two stopped spinning. The propeller for engine one began spinning and Umbreon tried to restart the engine, but it wouldn’t work. The starting motor was burnt out from the already spinning propeller, and the whole starting system was broken now. The nearest airport just might be in range.

            “Mayday mayday! USP207 lost thrust to both engines, requesting immediate landing,” Umbreon said into the radio.

            “Now feather engine one,” Umbreon said to Sylveon. Both propellers were now still.

            “PLT runway 07 clear for landing. Continue on heading.”

            Umbreon watched the speed drop below 200 as he tried to maintain altitude to be able to land.

180…

170…

160…

            “Will we be okay?” Sylveon asked.

150…

            “Maybe,” Umbreon responded.

140…

            Umbreon got back on the radio.

130…

120…

            “USP207 unable to land,” he said.

            “Is there any way—.” Umbreon shut off the radio as he was getting an unneeded response, he had to focus.

            Umbreon lowered the flaps to combat as he steered the plane hard right to attempt a landing on a straight section of highway. He was descending from 750 feet onto it. The left half of the highway was clogged with slow-moving traffic, but the right side was almost empty. The two sides were separated by a low concrete wall. Umbreon descended, ignoring the fact that if the ran into someone on this side of the highway, they would hit head on with a combined speed of 190mph.

            He extended the landing gear, but without power from the engines, they dropped slowly from gravity. He shook the plane around until he heard three clicks, the gear had locked. The plane descended silently through the air. Umbreon extended full flaps at 150 feet. The plane had accelerated in the descent but was now steadily holding speed at 130mph. Umbreon flew silently over a car and touched the plane down on the asphalt with a screech.

            It bounced once, twice, three times, before it settled down. It aimed itself towards the side of the highway as it stopped bouncing. Umbreon corrected the plane and was hard on the brakes as the plane barreled down the highway. He saw a car in the near distance. It came a little closer before it stopped, but the heavy plane was still rolling. The brakes became less efficient as they heated up, but Umbreon had no choice to keep them on.

            He had been on the ground for only half the distance it takes to stop, including the bounces. The car was still in the middle of the highway, whoever was driving it was probably frozen with fear and surprise. The plane continued to slow as he came ever closer. The brakes finally locked up and and the plane skidded to a stop less than 50 feet away from the car. The brakes were smoking as Umbreon opened the cockpit glass to get some fresh air into the cockpit.

            They all breathed a sigh of relief from the near miss.

            “So what went wrong?” Sylveon asked.

            “I think engine two was damaged from overheating when we were being chased, and it was amplified by our dive on the stadium. And then engine one was just being stubborn, which means I have no idea what happened,” Umbreon responded.

            He exited the cockpit as more cars stopped, blocked by the plane. Sylveon and Pidgeotto followed him onto the body of the plane. He walked back towards the tail and onto the left wing. He jumped over the engine.

            “Come over here,” he said to Sylveon and Pidgeotto, “I’m going to look how bad the damage is.”

            They joined him on the wing on the other side of engine and helped him lift the damaged cover. Umbreon looked into the engine. It didn’t look like an easy repair. The stared at the oil spattered engine in silence. “Is this bad?” Pidgeotto asked.

            “Well since two whole banks of pistons are missing, yes,” Umbreon said, “It should have nine banks of four pistons.”

            They heard sirens and looked to see five police cars working their way around the stopped traffic.

            “How are we going to explain this?” Sylveon asked.

            “Well we are well known, but not for being caught, and I have to say that we’re stuck here,” Umbreon replied.

 

Chapter 45

Back

 

            Instead of capturing the three stranded Pokémon, the police had made a road block and helped turn the plane around. Umbreon removed the cover in the center part of the propeller where the blades met. It exposed a large bolt, which they fit a small engine to turn the propeller. They also fit a new battery to provide the sparks for the spark plugs on ignition; the old one had exploded from overvoltage.

            The small engine was turned on and the propeller started turning. Umbreon opened the fuel lines and the engine started to run. It sputtered to life and the starting engine was removed. They had 4,000 feet of empty highway to take off on. Several news helicopters hovered overhead, once again, they had attracted media attention. Umbreon waved a thanks to the officers and throttled up the single engine, the other one was too damaged.

            He countered the unbalanced thrust with the rudder to keep the plane in a straight line. The plane slowly accelerated. The engine strained to get enough speed to get off the ground. If they didn’t take off, they would hit a bridge, and it looked like they would. Umbreon felt the plane struggle to gain speed, before taking to the sky much later than normal. The plane almost stalled as it rose off the ground. He pitched up the nose sharply to clear the bridge.

            The plane barely cleared the bridge and started to dip towards the ground. Umbreon reduced the pitch of the nose and the plane gained enough speed to fly away. Umbreon turned towards the airport. “USP207 back in the air. Requesting immediate landing. Flying on one engine,” Umbreon said.

            “Good,” The radio crackled, “Runway 07 is clear for landing. Welcome to the Indigo Plateau.”

            Umbreon set the crippled plane down on the runway and slowed down. He taxied off towards a clear spot to park. They would leave the plane there for a week as they battled to win the championships. He put the cover back on the drive shaft and left to go to the stadium area. The sun was starting to dip towards the horizon.

            They got to the sign up desk by the time the sun was about to set. Everyone else had been there earlier that day and were getting settled in for the week. He had brought the cloth with the eight badges to the desk. He jumped up on top of the desk, no one was there. Sylveon and Pidgeotto followed him up.

            “What do we do?” Sylveon asked.

            “Ring this,” Umbreon said as he pressed a small button on top of a small, shiny dome. It made a _ding_ sound.

            “Hold on one minute!” they heard someone say from behind a door.

            They heard papers shuffle and the doorknob twisted. A man with a long, white lab coat and tan pants stepped out. He looked around for a person, but his eyes eventually settled on the three Pokémon in front of him, two of which he had never seen before.

            He sighed. “I need to see trainers to enter them into the championships.”

            “We don’t have a trainer,” Umbreon said psychically.

            The man looked around for the source of the voice, his eyes settling back onto the three Pokémon.

            “Which one of you spoke?” he asked.

            “You’ll have to guess,” Umbreon said.

            “Uh. You, with the funny ears?”

            “Are you calling them funny?” Umbreon bristled sarcastically.

            The man took a step back. Surprised by the change of mood.

            “It’s okay,” Umbreon said, “I have these.”

            Umbreon pushed the cloth with the eight badges forwards.

            The man took them over to a machine and put them under a scanner. The machine beeped and eight green lights appeared. All of them were genuine.

            “Do you have any sort of I.D.?” The man asked, “It’s for making sure that these are yours.”

            “Uh,” Umbreon thought for a moment, “Do you have any type of scanner?”

            “We do. We use it when people have broken Pokédexes.”

            Umbreon walked forward and stood in front of the scanner, balancing on his hind legs so the scanner could detect his face. The scanner beeped and produced a picture on a screen and read the info out.

–—–—–———————————————————————————————————

_> |Name: Unknown._

_> |Nickname: Fury._

_> |Home: Unknown_

_> |Status: Unknown._

_> |Number of Pokémon: Three._

_> |Type of Pokémon: One Pidgeotto, two unknowns._

_> |Badges: Eight._

_> |_

_> |        -Vermillion               -Mist_

_> |        -Aura                        -Everest_

_> |        -River                       -Forest_

_> |        -Flare                       -Infinity_

_> |_

_> |Qualified for Indigo League Pokémon Battle Championships._

———————————————————————————————————————

            “There you go,” Umbreon said, even though he had no idea how all the information got there. “It says it right there.”

            “Just sign here,” The man said, putting a clipboard on the desk in front of Umbreon as he returned to his friends on top of the desk.

            Umbreon did his best to to write “Fury” down onto the line and put the pen down.

            “Thanks!” He called as he jumped off of the desk, followed by Sylveon and Pidgeotto.

            They left the building and started walking down the street.

            “Where will we stay?” Pidgeotto asked.

            “We’ll find a place,” Umbreon replied, “Don’t worry.”

 

Chapter 46

Welcome

 

            It was dark out. They were trying to find a place to spend the hot night. Even though they had been training in the heat, they were all tired of being uncomfortably hot. Also, they hadn’t trained for the humidity factor. This week would be difficult.

            Umbreon was lost in thought when he turned a corner and ran into something small and soft. He looked down to see something yellow. He focused his eyes to see a Pikachu, and recognized him immediately.

            “Hey buddy,” Umbreon said, “I never thought I’d see you here.”

            “I can say that for you too, “Pikachu responded.

            Umbreon heard a feminine voice past Pikachu “That’s the Pokémon I saw a long time ago in the hotel!”

            Umbreon looked up to see the same girl, along with two boys, one had a hat and the other had darker skin.

            “Oh, them again,” Umbreon said, diverting his attention back to Pikachu.

            “Don’t worry,” Pikachu responded, “They’re nice.”

            “That’s good, after everything we’ve been through.”

            Pikachu looked past Umbreon towards Pidgeotto and Sylveon.

            “Where’s Eevee and Marowak?”

            “Eevee can change into any eeveelution, even ones that haven’t been discovered, and, er…”

            “What’s wrong?”

            “Marowak is no longer with us.”

            “Where did he go?” Pikachu obviously didn’t get what Umbreon was trying to say.

            “He left,” Umbreon lied.

            “What! Why?”

            “Yea… We’ve been through a lot too…” Umbreon trailed off, thinking about his past experiences getting his gym badges. Especially at the final gym they went to.

            “Do you need a place to stay?” Pikachu asked.

            “That would be great!” Umbreon said.

            “I’ll tell them!” Pikachu replied.

            Umbreon waited as he watched Pikachu try to tell the humans that they needed a place to stay. They didn’t seem to get it. Umbreon was debating silently if he should speak to them psychically. He decided that he would.

            “He’s trying to tell you that we need a place to stay,” Umbreon said psychically.

            “Who said that?” The boy with the hat said. Umbreon remembered that his name was Ash.

            “I did,” Umbreon said, “The dark Pokémon that girl was talking about.”

            “You mean Misty?” Ash asked, “We didn’t believe her until now.”

            “So. Can we stay with you? Me and my friends here have known Pikachu for a long time, and I think it would be good to catch up with each other.”

            They grouped together to discuss it for a short bit. Umbreon caught that the older boy’s name was Brock. They turned to face the three Pokémon.

            “You can stay with us until the championships are over,” Ash said.

            “Thank you,” Umbreon replied, dipping his head.

            When they arrived at the small house provided to Ash and his friends by whoever runs the championships. Umbreon, Pidgeotto and Sylveon wanted to catch up with Pikachu, but they had been training hard. They had to sleep. Umbreon curled up on a chair, nose tucked underneath his tail tip. He fell fast asleep almost instantaneously, trusting Pikachu’s friends to keep him safe through the night.

            The following morning, everyone was called to the stadium to be welcomed into the championships in order of entry. Umbreon, Pidgeotto and Sylveon were going to be called last. He didn’t know if it was good or bad. Umbreon noticed that the stadium was packed. Would the crowd know who they were, and if they did, would they like them? Umbreon doubted it. All the other trainers waiting to be called out avoided them. All of them obviously knew their reputation.

            Umbreon noticed that each trainer said a quick sentence or two. Umbreon tried to think of what he should say as the number of trainers in the room fell as they were called out. By the time there were only two people left, Umbreon still hadn’t thought of what he should say. Then he heard it.

            “Our final entry, from somewhere out in a desert, with no trainer necessary, I would like to welcome Umbreon, and his small team of Pokémon.” The loudspeaker echoed out.

            They stepped out to a whirlwind of thousands of booing and jeering people. They obviously knew their reputation. Even the other trainers joined in on the sound. Umbreon walked across the dirt floor, itching with rage. He stepped up to the man with the microphone and waited until the crowd became silent. Umbreon knew exactly what to say.

            “I would like to say,” Umbreon scoffed psychically, “When an entire stadium full of people jeering at you is the best thing that has happened in almost a year, you just don’t care about what all the shitheads out there have to say. It should be demeaning, but it can’t be after what we’ve been through. Now I have just one tip: _Don’t_ make me angry.”

            The booing and jeering resumed louder than ever as he walked towards the line of trainers and sat down beside them. Pidgeotto and Sylveon were right next to him. The crowd of seemingly aggressive people were getting to them, but Umbreon knew that they would get used to it.

            “These young men and women… and Pokémon… have all trained hard to become this year’s Indigo league championship contestants!”

            The stadium erupted into applaud and cheering. They were all well aware that it was for anyone down there, except for Umbreon and his team. This made gave Umbreon the fuel he needed to win this, if nobody interfered with the rules. Umbreon almost knew that wouldn’t be true.

            The loudspeaker continued on to list the pairings for battles and at what time they were. Umbreon’s first battle was at the end of the day.

            When Umbreon was in the stadium that night, the late-night crowd clearly displayed their support for the other person. No one sat on his side of the arena, but they didn’t care. They were here to win, not to be intimidated by a crowd. That battle was won by Umbreon and his team. Sylveon changed into an Eevee in the middle of the round, in front of everyone, but Pidgeotto evolved into a Pidgeot and saved the match from almost certain defeat for Umbreon.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 47

Slash

 

            Umbreon woke up the morning of the final day of the championships. Much to the protest of spectators, they had made it to the final round. The previous night, Eevee had complained of something being wrong, but Umbreon was too tired to care, which he now regretted. Eevee was nowhere to be seen, even when the battle was about to begin at the hottest time of day.

            Eevee had turned out to be a big help, as he could replicate the attacks of all of the Eeveelutions. He avoided the moves only specific to Espeon, for obvious reasons. Now he was gone, and Umbreon couldn’t find him psychically either. He had to be far away.

            Now, Umbreon and Pidgeot had to battle even harder. There was two of them, but three of the other trainer’s Pokémon. Umbreon knew they were powerful; he had gotten into the final round. They were up against a rich kid, who was rumored to have paid off the referee, but Umbreon was confident in Pidgeot and his skills. They would have to do this without Eevee.

            The battle was about to begin, with still no sign of Eevee, but they had to start then, or they would automatically forfeit. Ash, Misty, Brock and Pikachu were the only ones cheering Umbreon and Pidgeot on. Everyone else sat on the opposite side of the stadium.

            “I have a little secret,” Umbreon told Pidgeot.

            “What is it?” He asked.

            “After I got ghastly out of my body and myself back in, a few months ago in Japan, I actually learned how to do something useful.”

            “What is it?”

            “I can literally make whatever I want appear in real form, but I try not to use it, as you see I haven’t. Also, it is really hard to do.”

            “That’s could be useful here.”

            Umbreon focused himself back on the battle in front of them. Pidgeot was going to battle first. Pidgeot stepped forwards as the trainer on the other side held a pokéball. “This will be a three on three battle,” The ref said, “There is no time limit. At stake, the Indigo League Champion position. Let the battle begin!”

            “Go Electabuzz!” The opposing trainer said.

            Of course he would choose an electric type against a flying type. Umbreon now had the disadvantage of type, and amount of Pokémon.

            Pidgeot took off and flew into the air. He was a fast flier, and his quick attacks could reach Mach 1.5. Electabuzz used thundershock, exactly what Umbreon thought. Pidgeot dodged it and came in with a quick attack, but Electabuzz dodged it. Pidgeot came around for another attack, and another, but they all missed. He had to slow down to be accurate. Electabuzz tried another thundershock, but Pidgeot dodged it again.

            “You can’t win if you can’t hit him!” Umbreon shouted at Pidgeotto.

            Pidgeot tried a wing attack, and it worked. Electabuzz was sent back, but hit Pidgeot with a lucky thundershock. Pidgeot landed and waited for Electabuzz to get back up. Electabuzz ran at him at hit Pidgeot with one of his long arms as he tried to fly away. All of this was making Electabuzz tired. They battled on for some time, but they restarted the trend of just dodging.

            Umbreon saw Pidgeot fly up and dive at Electabuzz for a quick attack. Pidgeot hit him, but Electabuzz hit Pidgeot with a thundershock. They were both laying on the ground.

            “Electabuzz and Pidgeot are unable to battle!” The ref said, “The first of three rounds is a tie!”

            Umbreon stepped into the battle area as Pidgeotto trudged out. “Good luck,” Pidgeotto said, “I’m out of this battle.”

            “If only Eevee was here,” Umbreon said, “Then I wouldn’t have to battle two Pokémon. Where could he be?”

            Umbreon stood on the opposite side of the battle area as his opponent chose another Pokémon.

            “Go Scyther!” He shouted.

            Umbreon prepared himself for a battle. He looked towards the ref, he would signal the start of battle. He noticed something sticking out of the ref’s back pocket. It looked like… a wad of $100 bills. There must have about $5,000 there. He had been paid off by his opponent. Umbreon knew all the odds were against him now. Something would happen, but he didn’t know when.

            “Let round two begin!” the ref said.

            Umbreon immediately sprang out of the way as Scyther used a tackle attack. Umbreon spun around and used a quick attack, but Scyther was too fast. Scyther used cut attack, skimming him somewhere between his neck and front legs as he tried to dodge it. Umbreon felt a sharp pain where he had been hit and looked down to see small drops of crimson on the ground. Blood. The crowd cheered. This is what the ref had been paid off for.

            The blades on Scyther’s arms are supposed to injure, but not cut, other Pokémon, unless instructed by an experienced trainer. Umbreon knew that the battle just got much more difficult. He dodged another cut attack, which was aimed for his neck. Umbreon realized that the opposing trainer was not trying to just defeat him, but kill him. “$5,000 is worth a Pokémon’s life?” Umbreon shouted to the ref, who blatantly ignored him. Apparently it was.

            Umbreon might have to use his secret ability, if he could. Umbreon kept dodging Scyther’s cut attacks, unable to get past them to attack. All he could do is wait, and not get hit. Umbreon tried to focus his energy to make something. _If he wants to battle, I’ll give him a good sword fight._ Umbreon thought.

            It was difficult for Umbreon to focus his energy; he had to keep dodging Scyther’s attacks. Umbreon became less focused on dodging and more focused on creating. Scyther managed to cut him down his side when he was trying to dodge, giving Umbreon a jolt of pain. Scyther then barely cut him just above his eyes. The crowd cheered louder, but Umbreon wasn’t going to give up; he had just finished making what he was so focused on, a katana. The only way he could fight Scyther.

            He picked it up psychically and brought it to him. The only way he could have maximum control of it if it was within paw’s reach. He held it psychically in front of him, the crowd booed, but he knew they were also puzzled. Just then, a second Scyther appeared. Umbreon thought that the Scyther had used double-team, but the other one was moving independently. This was another real Scyther, and another thing the ref had been paid off for.

            Umbreon’s vision was becoming blurry and red. The cut above his eyes was seeping blood down into them. He used the move sunlight to restore most of his energy and stop the bleeding. He was prepared to fight them both. He wasn’t going to give up that easy. The thin sword he held in front of him was the only thing stopping definite defeat.

            “Scyther! Cut that sword!” Umbreon heard the other trainer yell.

            The Scythers lunged in to cut the sword, but it stayed intact without a scratch.

            “You won’t defeat me that easily,” Umbreon said coolly.

            Umbreon’s goal wasn’t to injure the Scythers, but to damage their blades enough that they couldn’t injure him, then knock them out of the battle.

            Umbreon swung against the two Scyther’s blades trying to get to him. The sound of scraping filled the air as Umbreon held off the two fast Pokémon. Outnumbered, he had to work fast, or else his energy could fail. He wished his opponent could say something to make him mad so he could access his psychic attacks.

            Umbreon’s plan was working, he saw that the two Scyther’s blades were becoming riddled with and chips. All he had to do was make the remaining parts of them dull, so that they couldn’t hurt him. He kept slashing for a few more minutes, seeing that they were very damaged, and the Scythers looked tired too. The heat was taking effect on Umbreon. His black pelt absorbing all the hot summer sun.

            Umbreon stopped with the sword and it dissolved into the air without warning. Nothing that he could make would last very long. Umbreon used a quick attack, aimed at the Scyther that looked the weakest. He hit it and sent it tumbling back.

            “Scyther is unable to battle!” The ref said, “Begin round three.”

            _Round three?_ Umbreon thought. _He just combined two rounds._

            While Umbreon was distracted, Scyther tried a cut attack on Umbreon’s belly and neck. It would’ve killed him if he hadn’t dulled Scyther’s blades, but it still hurt. Umbreon had the wind knocked out of him before he was hit in the neck, causing more pain. Umbreon stood, gasping for air. Scyther quick attacked Umbreon and sent him back across the hard dirt ground.

            Umbreon wanted to lay on the ground until his problems were gone, but he heard the ref start to say that he was unable to battle. _How dare anyone think I am unfit for battle?_ Umbreon thought as he got to his paws, getting the ref’s attention before he was finished.

            “Come on!” the opposing trainer yelled, “Just give up already.”

            Umbreon wanted to thank him, it was all he needed.

            “And you think that I’ll just give up?” Umbreon shouted back, “Because you couldn’t be any more wrong. Now, it is time to end this.”

            Umbreon charged up a hyper beam, but this one was different. Umbreon was going to add something to confuse the Scyther. He released the attack, but Scyther managed to dodge it, but he was confused by the added touch. The hyper beam pulsed with extreme energy, creating a deafening sound. As the attack dissipated, the sound of the high-energy pulse echoed into the distance.

            Umbreon took a second to recover and tackled Scyther and used toxic fang attack, rendering his opponent null. “Scyther is unable to battle, Umbreon wins the round and the champion position.” The ref said. “Claim your trophy in an hour at the stadium.”

            The crowd booed him, even after he had just prove himself, against all of the odds. Umbreon heard something over the sound of the crowd. A loud bang. Before he could even begin to process what it was, pain seared across his side. He whipped his head around to see a long bloody mark. Someone had tried to shoot him, but the bullet grazed his side. He was lucky.

            He turned and ran towards Pidgeot, who had regained energy. Umbreon opened a couple more wounds while running towards him.

            “We have to go!” Umbreon yelled.

            Another shot rang out over the sound of the crowd before Pidgeot had time to respond, but he knew exactly what to do. Umbreon jumped onto his back and Pidgeot took off quickly and flew out of sight below the outside wall of the stadium. They were going to head to a Pokémon center to get healed and try to claim their prize without getting killed.

 

Chapter 48

Champions?

 

            Umbreon laid on a couch with Pidgeot sitting towards the other end. Umbreon had white bandages covering the wounds on his sides. They heard the phone ring and nurse Joy picked it up and said a few words. Umbreon was too tired to try and overhear. He had to go through a battle, and explain it to nurse Joy. Umbreon tried to sleep when he heard a voice calling for him.

            “Joy needs you,” Pidgeotto said.

            Umbreon stood up and walked towards the camera-phone. There looked to be an official from the championships on the other end. Nurse Joy put the phone down and the desk in front of Umbreon. “Hello,” He said.

            “Hi, I’m just here to ask you something,” The man said.

            “What?” Umbreon responded.

            “We understand the aggression towards you in your final battle, and the paid off ref. We have taken care of the ref and the trainer. We wanted to know if you were coming to the presentation of the prizes in about 15 minutes?”

            “Is it possible that I can come back in a few days and get my prize. I’m sorry, but I don’t want any more people trying to shoot me. Also, I have a missing friend to find.”

            “We understand. We’ll hold onto the prize until you come back.”

            “Thank you.”

            Umbreon walked away from the phone back towards the couch. He laid back down on the couch and fell asleep. He would have to stay there for a few days before the other people had left and he was in better shape. The Pokémon center was locked up, preventing the angry people from coming in. They really didn’t like Umbreon.

 

Chapter 49

Missing

 

            Two days later, Umbreon was clear to leave, but there was a problem. The people were still waiting for him to come out. Umbreon just couldn’t catch a break. Umbreon and Pidgeot talked together, trying to figure out the best way to escape. They eventually settled on Pidgeot flying Umbreon out from the roof. There should be a roof access on the building.

            They made their way up to the roof and Umbreon got on Pidgeot’s back.

            “Ready?” Pidgeot asked.

            “Ready,” Umbreon responded.

            Pidgeot took off and flew as fast as he could off of the roof of the buildings. The angry mob noticed them and left the Pokémon center in pursuit of them. They were headed towards the airport. They suspected Eevee might have gone there, sensing something was wrong there. Umbreon directed Pidgeot towards the hangar that they parked in. They landed, but the plane wasn’t there.

            “Eevee couldn’t have flown the plane away?” Pidgeot asked.

            “Not a chance,” Umbreon responded.

            Umbreon the familiar sound of a radio coming from the next hangar over. He signaled Pidgeot over silently, he didn’t want to be found. Umbreon snuck through the open side door of a hangar. Umbreon someone washing an expensive looking private jet with the sound of a news radio echoing around the large space. Umbreon managed to make out what was being said.

            “Now onto our next update, about Fury and his plane.”

            Umbreon froze, he knew something valuable was about to be said.

            “He was reported to have left the championships in quite a hurry after he was reportedly nervous about ‘more people shooting him.’ Anyways, his way of travel, his plane, was taken to a secret location somewhere south of its previous location. Another thing is an Eevee, probably the one in his group was discovered trying to sabotage the process and stop them from taking it. They captured it and took it with the plane.

            That’s it on that short, now onto the next one…”

            Umbreon silently ran out of the hangar.s

            “Pidgeot, we need to fly south! That’s where we’ll find Eevee.”

            Without question, they flew south away from the airport. Umbreon kept his senses sharp for any sign of Eevee’s personality or a sense of distress coming from him. They flew for three hours…

            Umbreon was about to call a rest. They had been flying through the windy sky for a long time, and they just needed a break. Umbreon caught a faint signal at the edge of his sensory vision.

            “Signal. Five miles dead ahead,” Umbreon said.

            Pidgeot flew on, bringing them towards the signal. There was a small building. So small that it could be called a shack, next to a large dirt colored concrete airfield.

            “Let’s go stay up in one of these hills until nightfall, I have a feeling that there is more here than what meets the eye,” Umbreon said.

            Pidgeot diverted his course towards a hill and landed on it.

            “Are you sure Eevee is in there?” Pidgeot asked.

            “And then some,” Umbreon responded.

 

Chapter 50

Nightmare

 

            Night had fallen long ago. It was time to approach the base. Pidgeot flew Umbreon in silently, the only sound being Pidgeot landing on the dirt. Umbreon got off of his back and headed for the door with Pidgeot right behind him.

            “Umbreon?” He whispered.

            “Yea?” Umbreon responded.

            “I don’t want to do this.”

            “We have to, if you ever want to see Eevee again.”

            “I do, but I don’t want to get us caught. I’m still not entirely used to being this big and I don’t want to cause a disturbance.”

            “Fine. Just stay up where we were before.”

            “But what if something goes wrong and I don’t—.”

            “You’ll know if something goes wrong. Don’t worry too much. Should be out before dawn.”

            Pidgeot watched as Umbreon turned to approach the single building before flying away. Umbreon was now on his own. Umbreon carefully opened the door leading onto the building, it was dark. His eyes made out a locked door and a scanner next to it. He made himself into a shadow and seeped around the door before reforming himself and descending down stairs into the ground.

            The light level grew as Umbreon descended. He was now unable to use shadow to hide in the light. After a long time of descending, he finally reached the bottom. There was a long, brightly lit corridor. He could sense Eevee was somewhere down the hall to the left. Umbreon looked carefully and listened for any signs of life, but there appeared to be none. One of the strange things was on the walls, were red R’s, just pasted onto it.

            Umbreon crept down the hall, unaware of the security cameras watching. He was too focused on searching for signs of people or guard Pokémon. The hallway seemed to stretch out for miles. Umbreon heard the hum of machinery, probably a generator or an air circulation system. Umbreon thought that it was strange that no one was around. It seemed too easy to get in.

            Without warning, the lights turned off and the hum of machinery faded into silence, something wasn’t right. Umbreon’s eyes took only a few seconds to adjust to the dark. Umbreon still saw no one. As he started to walk down the hall, the lights flashed on, and then turned off, then in again. They were flashing on short intervals. Umbreon’s eyes couldn’t see in the sudden changes of light. A loud pitched scree filled the hallway, hurting his ears. He was unable to hear or move as three people approached him. Above ground, Pidgeot had no idea what was happening nearly 1,000 feet underground.

            Umbreon felt something sharp hit him. His vision became blurry and the sound started to fade out. _Am I dying?_ Umbreon thought. _I failed Eevee._ Everything went black. He was just suspended in silence.

 

———

 

            Umbreon felt himself lying on something cold and smooth. _Where am I?_ He thought. His vision was blurry and it took a few minutes to clear. It had been two days since he entered, but he didn’t know that, nor was he paying attention. Pidgeot waited in the hills above the small base, too scared to go in. He didn’t want to find out what was down there.

            Umbreon looked around He was in a cage made of steel. Steel top. Steel bottom, steel bars. He couldn’t escape. Umbreon looked past his cage to see other cages stacked on top of each other. Some in stacks 15 feet high. Umbreon knew he was on a higher stack because he had a good view of the other cages. Then he noticed something disturbing. The cages each held a Pokémon.

            Umbreon got up and felt a sharp pain in his side again. He looked to see an empty glass dart. It was tranquilizer dart. He pulled it out and pushed it out of the cage. It shattered on the floor, echoing around the large room. His eyes and rings were glowing dimly; he didn’t have much energy.

            He realized that he should try to find Eevee down there. He tried his best to use his senses to find Eevee, but he was weak, they couldn’t go much farther than a few feet, but it was enough. A faint glow came from a cage next to him. He looked at it, only the bottom half was visible. It was propped up by another cage with a Growlithe in it. He looked in the cage that was supposed to have Eevee in it. He saw the dark outline of an Eevee sleeping in the cage.

            “Hey,” He whispered, “Wake up!”

            Eevee didn’t move.

            “Wake up!” He said a little louder.

            Eevee’s ear twitched.

            “Wake up!” He shouted.

            Eevee opened an eye and looked into the glowing eyes of Umbreon.

            “You’re awake!” Eevee said.

            “How long was I asleep for?”

            “My estimation is a couple of days.”

            “Oh shoot. Pidgeot must be worried out of his mind.”

            “He’s here too?”

            “Not down here. He flew me here, but refused to come in at the last second, which was probably for the better.”

            “So how will we escape?”

            “I don’t know.”

            Umbreon and Eevee exchanged ideas for a few minutes, but they still couldn’t figure out how to get out, so they thought silently.

            “I have an idea!” Umbreon blurted out after a few minutes of silence.

            “What!” Eevee said, excited.

            “Use your flamethrower to cut through a bar on your cage, then cut one on mine.”

            Eevee used a concentrated flamethrower to cut a bar where it met the floor and roof of his cage, careful not to let the bar fall to the floor. Then he cut through as much of the bar on Umbreon’s cage as he could before he jumped in. Now Eevee and Umbreon were in one cage as Eevee cut through another bar leading to the outside of their cages.

            Eevee finished cutting through the bar and they celebrated for a second, they were free from their cages. They weren’t paying attention to the bar, so it fell out of the cage and clattered as it hit the tile floor. Eevee and Umbreon froze as a door opened, flooding the room with a shaft of light. They saw a man with a white uniform walk over to the steel bar. Eevee hid behind Umbreon.

            The man looked up at the cages, and Umbreon looked down at him. His eyes and rings glowing brighter than before. The man shone a flashlight up at whatever was glowing, only to see the face of a Pokémon. He turned the flashlight off and walked out of the room, leaving it in silent darkness.

            Umbreon pushed himself out of the cage and jumped down to the top of another cage a few feet below. Eevee followed him as he jumped down to another cage, just seven feet off of the floor.

            “Ready?” Umbreon asked.

            “Yea,” Eevee responded.

            Umbreon jumped down to the floor, making little sound. Eevee followed him, landing heavily. Stacks of cages towered above them.

            “Why are you leaving us here?” they heard a Vaporeon ask from a cage behind them.

            “We can’t let everyone escape at once, that plan would never work,” Umbreon responded.

            “So you’re just leaving all of us here,” The Vaporeon responded.

            “Don’t worry, you’ll be free after we get some reinforcements. Weather human or Pokémon.”

            “When will you free us?”

            “We should get you out within the next month. I know, it’s a long time.”

            “It is.”

            “I need you to keep these Pokémon organized.”

            “How? I can’t do anything from this cage!”

            “You need to make sure you all cooperate. Keep whichever group of Pokémon you stay with together. I know you can do it. I can sense you’re strong.”

            “But how. I can’t—.”

            “Shush. The first thing you need to do is gain confidence in yourself. These Pokémon need you.”

            “Okay.”

            “Good. Now Eevee and I need to get going.”

            “Bye.”

            “See you soon.”

            Umbreon turned and approached a door where the source of the humming was seeming to come from. He managed to force it open, entering a room lit by dim, red lights. Eevee was right behind him.

            “We are looking for some type of switch or lever to turn this off,” Umbreon said, “I think this is a generator.”

            They split up and looked for something to turn off the lever in the strange light.

            “I found it!” He heard Eevee call out.

            Umbreon ran over to him.

            “Next time, don’t be so loud,” Umbreon said.

            “Sorry,” Eevee whispered.

            Umbreon reached up and puled the switch down. The humming stopped, but the red lights remained on.

            “Let’s go,” Umbreon said, “Something must’ve changed.”

            They exited the room back into the Pokémon storage room.

            “Stay here for a second,” Umbreon said before going off to talk with Vaporeon again.

            Umbreon came back to Vaporeon and gave him more instructions. “I forgot to say, but if I don’t get out of here, you won’t have to worry about organizing all of these Pokémon.”

            “Okay,” Vaporeon said.

            “There’s something else though,” Umbreon said, “If Eevee is separated from me and left here, which I hope won’t happen, I need you to take care of him.”

 before going out into the long hall. The lights were off. Replaced by dim red lights spaced about 40 feet apart.

            “Let’s run,” Umbreon said as moved to go forwards, “Our plane is probably somewhere down this hall.”

            Umbreon and Eevee ran silently down the dark hall, he could hear footsteps echoing somewhere behind them, but they were going the opposite direction of them.

            “I can’t keep up!” Eevee panted.

            Umbreon stopped. “Climb onto my back. I’ll carry you.”

            Eevee climbed onto his back and Umbreon started running towards the other end of the complex. Umbreon could run at full speed, which was somewhere between 30 and 35 miles per hour. There was no catching him as he tore down the hall. Easily carrying the 14 pound Eevee, around ¼ of his weight.

            Umbreon skid to a stop as he reached a door on the other end of the hall. He forced open the door and saw the He-219 that carried them everywhere sitting on a pad in a large room. There was a whiteboard near the door that said: “Start work on plane for the boss tomorrow.”

            Umbreon had to get it out of here too, but how? Umbreon saw a lever on the side of the wall as the lights turned back on and the humming started again, only now it was faint. Umbreon went over to it and switched it, hoping that it would turn off the lights, but instead, a large platform that Umbreon and the plane were on began to rise, leaving Eevee looking at the whiteboard. Umbreon went to the edge of the platform as Eevee started running over. Eevee jumped and Umbreon caught one of his paws.

            Umbreon’s grip slipped and Eevee fell to the floor below.

            “I’m so sorry!” Umbreon shouted.

            The platform rose into a shaft in the ceiling before Umbreon could hear an answer. He was on his own once again, wondering what could happen to Eevee. The platform rose faster and faster, racing towards the surface. _It must be going to the runway!_ Umbreon thought. He got into his plane and was getting prepared to turn the engine on when the platform slowed and the runway appeared in front of him. “I’m sorry Eevee,” Umbreon said to himself as he turned on the engines, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

            Umbreon turned on the only working engine. Somewhere on the mountain above, Pidgeot heard it and flew down to the source of the sound. Umbreon hurried Pidgeot into the plane.

            “Where’s Eevee?” He asked.

            “I’ll tell you after we’re out of here,” Umbreon responded as he put the engine to full throttle.

            The plane slowly accelerated down the long runway, the single engine roaring. Umbreon really needed to get the plane fixed and fine-tuned. Umbreon carefully lifted the plane off the ground before gently turning a little left to head directly south. The sound of jet engines momentarily filled the air. Umbreon looked right to see a large cargo plane approaching the runway.

            “What’s that big R on the tail?” Pidgeot asked.

            “I don’t know,” Umbreon responded, “I saw it in the base too.”

            “So what about Eevee?”

            “We were separated in the base and there was no way I could go back in without getting caught for good. So I decided to not go back into the base and leave to get reinforcements, probably the police.”

 

———

 

            In the main HQ of whoever ran the base, the news of Umbreon’s escape from the plane reached the boss.

            “I’m sorry to tell you,” one of his assistants said, “But the dark Pokémon escaped with the plane.”

            “Is that Eevee with them?” The boss asked.

            “No. They were separated.”

            “Well, at least we still have him.”

            “But what about the dark Pokémon?”

            “If we can’t keep that Pokémon, or his plane, they won’t either.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “You’ll hear soon.”

 

———

 

            They flew on in silence for two hours until Umbreon spotted an airport on the radar.

            “U07 to Santa Fe airport, we need to land”

            “SFA to U07, continue on heading.”

            As they got closer, Umbreon began to slow the plane and descend a little bit.

            “SFA to U07, bank right heading two-six.”

            Umbreon, eager to land, tilted the plane and pulled back on the stick in order to turn. He heard a small _snap_ , and the plane didn’t turn. The stick felt loose when he pushed it forward.

            _Ok, I still have the rudder._ Umbreon thought as he used the modified pedals to steer the plane right, but again, he heard a _snap_ , and the pedals felt loose too. Umbreon realized they were in big trouble.

            “SFA to U07, you missed the turn. Prep—.”

            “Mayday! U07 to SFA. We have lost all tail controls.”

            “What controls?”

            “Tail controls. Rudders and elevators.”

            “Is your plane fly by wire, or cable controls.”

            “Cable controls, it is an old plane.”

            There was a pause.

            “We have all runways clear for landing. The headings are two-six, oh-seven, and one-six.”

            “Thank you, I will try to land.”

            Umbreon slowed the plane as he thought about how to control the plane, he couldn’t turn. As the plane slowed past 200, the nose dipped slightly.

            “Are we going to crash?” Pidgeot asked.

            “Only if you keep talking!” Umbreon snapped back, “I’m trying to think.”

            He deployed combat flaps to maintain altitude, and the nose rose a bit. _That’s it!_ Umbreon thought.

            “U07 to SFA, which runway it the longest?”

            “Oh-seven-oh is the longest. Are you going to attempt a landing there?”

            “Yes.”

            “We’ll prepare emergency crews incase anything gets ugly.”

            Umbreon tilted the plane and set flaps to takeoff, trying hard to keep the plane at the low altitude, speed, and turn. He made a wide circle before flying at heading oh-seven-oh towards the runway. His altitude was 350 feet and slowly descending.

            “U07 on final approach, and I forgot to mention that we are flying on one of two engines, but it has been like that for a while. It is safe.”

            Umbreon controlled the plane with only flaps and ailerons as the runway grew closer, he had to keep his speed over 180mph to maintain stability. The plane wasn’t designed to land above 150mph. Umbreon deployed the gear as he grew closer and retracted flaps and reduced throttle to descend.

            The drag of the landing gear, combined with the reduce on throttle and the retraction of the flaps, made the plane descend too quickly. Umbreon noticed the fast descent rate as the nose dipped down. If he landed like that, the gear would give out and the plane, loaded with fuel, would most likely catch fire.

            Umbreon deployed full flaps and increased the throttle to full. The engine changed pitch as the plane accelerated in an attempt to decrease the landing angle. The plane hit the ground hard at 210mph, the wings dipping, but landing gear stayed intact. The plane bounced several times as Umbreon idled the engine and and retracted flaps in order to stay on the ground. The plane kept bouncing higher and higher until the speed fell below 120mph.

            Umbreon was hard on the brakes as the plane was thrown off course by the bounces, and there was no way to correct it without control of the rudders. The plane rolled off of the side of the runway at 80mph and was headed straight for the fence of airport less than 1,000 feet away. On the outside, there was a highway, and past that, buildings.

            The brakes weren’t working either. _How could so much go wrong at one time?_ Umbreon asked himself. _This couldn’t be a coincidence._ The plane jumped as it rolled onto a taxiway beside the runway. They were still going 40mph when the fence was less than 500 feet away. They wouldn’t slowdown in time. Umbreon closed his eyes and ducked as they rolled off of the end of the taxiway and through the fence. The plane shook, the tail most violently as they rolled down the embankment.

            The plane lurched to a halt as they hit the steel guard rail at the side of the highway. Cars swerved to avoid the plane pushing the guard rail out into the highway. The guard rail forced the plane to a stop as it was bent and expanded to its limit. The plane was stopped across three of the four lanes of traffic, causing chaos on the highway. Umbreon turned off the engine as some of the emergency crews arrived behind the plane.

            “U07 to SFA. We’re all safe, just creating havoc on the highway.”

            “That’s good to hear. Did you come here in search of repair?”

            “Kind of.”

            “Well there is an old plane workshop on the other end of the airport. Closed today though. It’s his day off.”

            “Why here?”

            “This is where he could put it.”

            “Well first thing’s first, we need to get towed over there.”

            Umbreon sighed a sigh of relief, one part of the nightmare was over. Pidgeot had been quite quiet this whole time. Umbreon looked back at him. “You okay?” He asked.

            “I think I’m going to be sick,” Pidgeot responded.

            “Too bumpy for you?” Umbreon said as he opened the cockpit, exposing them to the outside world.

Chapter 51

Oil and Aerodynamics

 

            After much explaining what they were doing there, they were towed to the hangar where the plane workshop was. They opened it up and parked the plane inside and told them just to wait until tomorrow, when it was open, but Umbreon didn’t want to wait, Eevee, and many others, were waiting on him. They left Umbreon and Pidgeot alone in the hangar. Umbreon didn’t know if it was a mistake or not. He looked around at all the different machines.

            Umbreon thought he saw one that could fix the broken engine on his plane. He opened the hatch to the broken engine. Large bolts were blocking him from getting to his goal of fixing the engine. Umbreon needed a wrench, but without thumbs, there was no way he could use one.

            He had to concentrate hard, but eventually, he managed to access his psychic abilities and get a wrench from a large red toolbox. Umbreon could do almost anything now.

            After ten hours of trying to figure out how stuff worked and what to replace, Umbreon had done many things to fix and improve the plane. He had used a machine that copied parts and cut them out of steel to replace the four broken pistons and the bank heading for them. He had also read on a strange looking part of the engine to replace every 350 hours of runtime. There were two for each engine. He managed to find something to loosen them. When he loosened it a little bit, a thick, black, foul smelling fluid started to ooze out. Oil.

            After a lot of psychic scans and pipe-tracing, he figured out how to drain the fluid from the engines out of a small pipe. They drained the oil from the engines and took whatever the weird pieces of metal were off of the plane, but they said replace. Umbreon spent a long time trying to find them in a part of the hangar that was filled with varying shapes and sizes of the strange metal dome, which he found it to be called an oil filter.

            After finding four similar-looking ones that fit, Umbreon found Oil to full the oil tanks with. After finding the oil input, Umbreon kept pouring it in until they were full. Umbreon also increased the flow of air though the engines by removing some of the aluminum siding, bending it which was very difficult, and replacing it where it was.

            Umbreon was completely spent by the time he was done, but there was something else, the brakes. They hadn’t been working when he landed, along with the elevators and rudder. He had to stay up and fix those too.

            It was easy to figure out how to fix the brakes, there was no hydraulic fluid. Umbreon found some and fixed the brake problem. He found it strange that there was none in them, almost like someone drained it purposely. Umbreon went to fix the tail controls with a long coil of titanium aircraft wire he found. He had to open up many hatches before he could fix the wire. He found it broken within easy access to a hatch.

            They weren’t broken, or totally broken. They had been cut most of the way through, leaving the rest to break if he maneuvered the plane too quickly. _It must have been at that base!_ Umbreon thought. It took a long time, but he managed to rewire and tension the tail controls. He climbed out of the tail section of the plane and walked over to the wing where Pidgeot had been sound asleep for several hours now. Umbreon laid down on the wing a few feet away from him. He had no idea what he had done, how he had done it, and if he did it right. He just wanted to sleep now.

            Late the next morning, the shop was due to open soon, but Umbreon and Pidgeot were still sound asleep on the wing. The shop was littered with empty fluid containers, small metal scraps, steel cable, and splotches of oil. Umbreon was too tired to be able to wake himself and Pidgeot. The side door was unlocked as the owner was getting ready to open. The door opened and He found the shop to be completely littered with metal and containers. He thought someone had robbed him, until he saw the beautiful plane in the middle of the hangar, with two Pokémon sleeping on the wing.

            “What are you doing in here?” The man said.

            That’s what Umbreon woke up to. He snapped awake and sat up, seeing the owner looking at him and the plane.

            “Hey Pidgeot, wake up,” Umbreon said, nudging him.

            “What?” Pidgeot responded.

            “Just get up.”

            Umbreon focused his attention back to the man.

            “I know you,” He said, “And that Pidgeot too.”

            “Sorry,” Umbreon replied, “I was in a rush when I did this.”

            “Oh it’s fine, with a plane like that.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Your plane, it’s stunning. Where did you get it?”

            “Oh, that. It’s a long story.”

            “I have a few hours.”

            “But you wouldn’t believe it.”

            “Sure I will.”

            “Okay then, if you’re so sure. In short, we captured it from the Germans in World War Two. It took us all night.”

            “I take that back. That’s hard to believe. Where’s that Eevee that’s always with you.

            “He was captured and I went to save him, but failed. I did find evidence leading to a huge string of crimes, and I needed a fully functioning plane.”

            “What was wrong with the plane?”

            “A bank of pistons on the number two engine blew out. The oil needed to be changed, as well as some filters. Then someone drained the brake fluid and weakened the tail control cables to they would break.”

            “That doesn’t sound good.”

            “No, but we need to get going soon. Is there anything we could do to help?”

            “Just help me clean this up and you can go on your way.”

Chapter 52

Report

 

            After they had helped clean up, they parked the plane somewhere else and went to get help for freeing all of the captured Pokémon. Pidgeot flew Umbreon over the city of Santa Fe, looking for a police station. It is their only connection between them and getting real help. “There’s one!” Umbreon shouted as he spotted one close by.

            Pidgeot dove down and landed in front of it. Umbreon got off of his back and walked towards the glass doors. He pushed them open and walked in with Pidgeot behind him. Umbreon only saw one person at the desk, a tall woman with blue hair.

            “I need help,” Umbreon said, getting her attention.

            “Oh, it’s you. Have you come to turn yourself in for what you guys have done?” She asked sarcastically

            “Not in a million years. We are here to report a major crime.”

            “What is it?”

            “Have Pokémon been stolen from around here?”

            “Yes. Here and all around the country.”

            “We know where they went, and we need your help to liberate them.”

            “Where did they go?”

            “To an underground base a few hours’ plane ride north of here.”

            “How do you know?” She said, forgetting about how Fury needed to be arrested.

            “Our friend was captured, and I was when I went to save him, but I managed to escape. There could be hundreds of Pokémon there.”

            “How much support would you need?”

            “We need a large team of people, 50 or so, with some form of air travel to get there. There is a runway, but no roads to get there.”

            “Okay. All we need to know is exactly where it is, and we’ll take care of it.”

            Umbreon sighed, “You obviously don’t know me then.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “I am going to go too. I am not leaving a bunch of people I don’t know to do something. I promised _I_ would be back with the reinforcements. Also, I don’t know exactly where it is, but I can lead people there. I will be useful in it too.”

            “Okay, okay. Calm down. Meet the people who you are going to lead to the base at the airport. You won’t miss the plane. For radio, you’ll be referred to as one, and they will be two.”

            Umbreon and Pidgeot left and flew back to the airport, where they hoped to find whoever was going to help them. From the sky, Umbreon and Pidgeot already knew who was helping them. It was a large SWAT team. There was a large black jet with four engines and a cargo door in the back parked next to their plane, which was small in comparison.

            Pidgeot landed in the airport next to their plane. They saw the men talking among themselves and gesturing towards them. They were obviously unsure about something. One of them broke off from the group and approached Umbreon. The rest of the men watched.

            “Are you the one who is going to lead us to the base we are invading. The order was unclear of who is going to lead us, but we think we heard the name Fury,” the man said.

            “That would be right,” Umbreon replied, “Let’s leave at once.”

            Umbreon went to his pane and turned on engine one.

            “Let’s see if engine two actually works,” Umbreon said to Pidgeot.

            Umbreon turned on engine two after a failed attempt.

            “It works,” Pidgeot said.

            Umbreon taxied towards the runway he had landed on the other day. It was strange to look behind them and see the large plane.

            “Number one, what is your maximum flight speed?” the radio crackled.

            “It is about 540mph at roughly 14,000 feet,” Umbreon responded.

            “You sure your plane doesn’t have jets in it?” The pilot of the SWAT plane joked.

            “100% sure.”

            Umbreon was cleared for takeoff. They had started a very important mission. Umbreon lifted the plane off of the runway and circled the airport once before meeting up with the other plane. They climbed to 14,000 feet and kept the engines at redline, which they could do now because of the modifications to improve air flow. The plane quickly climbed to a speed of 560mph. They flew for an hour and a bit before beginning to descend and reduce speed. The sound of jet engines had followed them to the base.

            Umbreon spotted the base from 5,000 feet in the air.

            “The base is five miles straight ahead,” Umbreon said

            “How long is the runway?” The pilot of the other plane asked.

            “More than long enough.”

            Umbreon reduced the throttle and pointed the nose of the plane down. Losing altitude fast enough so that they could land. Umbreon set the plane down at the end of the runway and slowed down. He then taxied off of the runway and parked next to the small shed-like entrance. The other plane followed and parked on the other side. The sound of the wind was all that was left as the jet engines shut down.

            “Pidgeot,” Umbreon said, “Stay here and mind the planes.”

            Umbreon jumped out of the plane and approached the thin door to get into the little shack. The SWAT team unloaded from their plane and followed Umbreon to the door.

            “You take the lead,” The leader of the SWAT team said, “You’ve been in here before.”

            “Alright,” He replied as he opened the thin door into the small shack, only to be met with the reinforced door once again.

            “Close the door,” Umbreon said, “I need the dark to get in.”

            The door closed and left then in darkness. Umbreon disappeared. Umbreon heard the three men on the other side of the door he seeped around as a shadow whisper amongst themselves. It was probably about where he had gone. Umbreon managed to open the door from the inside. The men poured down the stairs behind Umbreon, the entire complex was dark.

            They reached the bottom after a minutes of descending the stairs. Umbreon stopped at the bottom, listening for any signs of people in the base.

            “Spread out and look for signs of people. I need five of you to follow me,” Umbreon commanded. He felt strange commanding these people, usually, people try to command him.

            Umbreon walked down the hallway towards where he was trapped with Eevee less than a few days ago. Umbreon forced open the door and looked in, expecting to find the room filled with many cages, but it was empty. He scanned the dark room. His eyes had already adjusted to the dark and he could see clearly that the room was absolutely empty.

            “There’s supposed to be cages and cages of Pokémon here,” Umbreon said as the men shone their flashlights around the room.

            Umbreon made his way back to the stairs they came down on, where the men had already searched the base and turned up empty-handed.

            “Did you find anything?” Umbreon asked.

            “No,” The leader said, “But the R’s on the wall point to a group of criminals called Team Rocket.”

            “So they took Eevee and all the other Pokémon. We should go back to Santa Fe. I saw a cargo plane land when I was escaping.”

            They climbed the stairs to get back to their planes and Pidgeot.

            “Anything?” Pidgeot asked.

            “Nothing,” Umbreon responded, “We need to find them.”

 

Chapter 53

Where are you?

 

            “No. 2. I have a question for you?” Umbreon said.

            “Yes No. 1.”

            “Do you know of any radars that could’ve tracked the cargo jet I saw land earlier? I think they could’ve been on that plane.”

            “Follow us and we’ll look at the radar.”

            Umbreon let the SWAT plane take the lead as he was led towards a military base. Equipped with the latest in radar technology, it could track planes up to 1000 miles away. They could look back at the radar’s history and find a radar recording of when the cargo plane landed and took off.

            Umbreon was led to a building inside the base by the SWAT team. Umbreon was led into a dark room with a large greenish screen. There was a man watching it, who noticed them walk in.

            “Have you seen an unidentified plane flying in the radar space?” The SWAT leader said.

            “I’ve seen two, one of them just landed here along with you, so who is that?” The radar man replied.

            “It’s me, Fury. I am here with them because we are trying to get to the bottom of a criminal case that is beyond the normal police’s capabilities,” Umbreon cut in as he walked up to the screen.

            “Okay then,” The radioman said uneasily, “The second object appeared about 10 minutes before you disappeared in the same spot, and it is still on the radar now.”

            Umbreon saw the dot on the screen marked as Unid_1. With altitude marked at 5,000 feet and descending.

            “It’s descending,” Umbreon pointed out.

            “It is,” The radioman said, “Wherever it lands could be where a base is.”

            The marker vanished off of the map a minute later.

            “We should get going soon,” Umbreon said.

            “I think we should get some sleep first,” Pidgeot pointed out, “It is getting dark.”

            Umbreon realized how tired he was. He had been so focused on finding Eevee that he hadn’t slept well for a long time.

            “We’ll go tomorrow,” The SWAT leader said.

            “Okay,” Umbreon responded.

 

———

 

            The next morning, they left in a hurry to get to the marked coordinates on the SWAT plane’s radar. This is where they could hopefully find Eevee. The base was only a couple of hours away, so Umbreon had plenty of time to think about what they would do, but quickly, his mind began to wander. It eventually came to if he could switch his radio to music stations. It is hard to fly in silence for many hours.

            Umbreon eventually found out how to switch to music, but they would soon drop out of range. They were flying so fast. He settled on a news station as he flew. He found it nice to have the sound of a voice in the usually quiet plane, and then he heard something about an Umbreon through the crackly radio.

 

            “For three months, scientists have been studying five Umbreon at a lab, the same type of Pokémon that the well-known Fury is. They have released some of the findings from their studies as more of these strange Pokémon are being found in the Western United States.

            The first thing is, it evolves from an Eevee. How it evolves is still under scrutiny, but they think an Eevee evolves into an Umbreon when it is at a high level, high happiness, and during the night. They have also compared it to Fury, the first Umbreon found.

            The first difference noticed is that the all of the Umbreon found, have darkish-yellow rings instead of the light-blue ones on Fury. The eyes on the Umbreon are red, instead of Fury’s yellow eyes. The fur color is the same at pure black. They have also noticed differences in attacks and behavior.”

 

            “Are you listening to this?” Pidgeot asked.

            “Shush, I can’t hear,” Umbreon responded.

 

            “The Umbreon’s defense strengths and weaknesses are:

-Weak against fighting attacks.

-Weak against bug attacks.

-Strong against ghost attacks.

-Immune to psychic attacks.

-Weak against fairy attacks.

-Strong against other dark attacks.

 

            There is one piece of evidence here that doesn’t match up. The Umbreons tested are immune to psychic attacks, but Fury isn’t. The tested Umbreons aren’t psychic types and show no sign of being able to perform psychic attacks. Fury has attacked with psychic attacks in the past.

            We also have the Umbreon’s offensive strengths and weaknesses are:

-Weak against fighting type.

-Strong against ghost types.

-Strong against psychic types.

-Weak against fairy types.

-Weak against other dark types.

            There is evidence that the tested Umbreons and Fury are different types of Pokémon, but the majority of the evidence shows that they are the same. Fury shows considerably higher brainpower than the tested Umbreons. The tested Umbreons also can’t speak psychically. The test Umbreons are very patient, but Fury has a short temper, earning him his nickname. They also show no interest in aircraft or airports. As we all know, Fury relies on them to get everywhere.

            There have also been other tests going on at the same lab about another new species of Pokémon found in the same area that seems to be the complete opposite from the Umbreon, but also evolves from the Eevee, making the fifth species in the Eeveelutions. It is called the Espeon.

            We will tell you more about this discovery after the break. 101.7 WJF in Renir.”

            Umbreon switched the radio back to the channel him and the other plane were using. Umbreon began to think about the battles he had in the past and his strengths and weaknesses. He reached a conclusion.

            “Something is wrong with my head,” Umbreon said out of the blue.

            “What do you mean?” Pidgeot replied.

            “You listened to the radio, right?” Umbreon asked

            “Yes, and I heard many differences.”

            “Something went wrong somewhere when I evolved, and even when I broke out of the Pokéball.”

            “What do you think it is, because I have no idea.”

            “I evolved into an Umbreon in the middle of the desert, at night, but when I was the unhappiest that I had ever been, and probably when I ever will be.”

            “What about the Pokéball?”

            “I changed from the normal coloring of an Umbreon to this coloring after I destroyed the pokéball. That means it glitched when retransferring data out into the world. Wait… But that means something is wrong with my head, _and_ I’m a glitch. I need to know what I really am, and how I can become more normal.”

            “You still seem flustered.”

            “Well… Now I know that I’m not alone anymore.”

            “What do you mean? Eevee and I are here for you. Eevee once again after we find him.”

            “I’m not a single Pokémon in my species anymore, and I really want to figure out what is different with me.”

            “That makes sense. Say, when do you think we’ll get to the base?”

            “I’ll find out.”

            Umbreon got on the radio and called to the other plane.

            “When will we be at the base?” Umbreon asked.

            “We are over Renir right now, and the base is marked in the mountains above it, but there is no way to land stealthily on the runway. So we’re trying to figure out a way to land so we don’t get found out, but it may take a while. Slow down to match out speed.”

            Umbreon slowed his speed alongside the jet to match speeds at 220mph. With every passing minute he spent at 14,000 feet circling above the city, he grew more and more impatient. He could finally sense that Eevee was in the base below, but the signal was so weak. Umbreon knew something was wrong.

            Eevee was probably very weak, or something was very wrong with him, like as if Eevee’s personality was buried behind a new one by Team Rocket. Eevee might not be the same as always. Team Rocket could’ve changed him using strange techniques, like a type of torture, to get Eevee to comply with them. They might want to keep Eevee separated from the other Pokémon for some reason.

            “Have you found a way to land safely?”

            “Not yet, but we’re still looking.”

            “That’s it! It’s now or never.”

            Umbreon rolled the plane and dove towards the ground, causing Pidgeot to squawk in surprise. Umbreon leveled out when the speed went past 600mph. he was at 5,000 feet above the ground. He let the speed fall before diving to an altitude of 750 feet. He circled over Renir as he waited for the much larger plane to descend in order to land.

            “I’m going to land first if that’s okay,” Umbreon radioed to the SWAT plane, “I want to make sure that whoever is down there knows that we mean business.”

            “You go right ahead,” He heard through the radio. The SWAT team knew there was no way to stop him.

            Umbreon cut in front of the SWAT plane a few miles away from the base and landed less than 30 seconds before it. He knew he was at the right place when he saw a camouflaged hangar with the large cargo plane with the R on the tail.

            Umbreon locked up the wheels when he landed trying to stop so fast so he could get Eevee as fast as possible. Umbreon was already halfway out of the plane as it skidded to a halt. The SWAT plane stopped and the 50 or so men on board poured out with armor on and submachine guns in hand.

            “Pidgeot, you keep an eye on the base and tell any SWAT person if there is anything important you see,” Umbreon commanded.

            “Alright,” Pidgeot said as he flew into the air.

            Umbreon followed the men towards the entrance of the base. Umbreon had no idea what laid behind those doors.

            “Eevee. Where are you?” Umbreon said to himself.

 

 

 

Chapter 54

Blood

 

            Umbreon looked left and right in the base. He couldn’t see much through the legs of the SWAT team as they spread out throughout the base. Umbreon ran down a hallway, following a sign that said ‘P-Storage.’ Five SWAT members followed him to a door labeled ‘Authorized Access Only.’ He lost track of where Eevee’s relative position when he entered the building. He had to find Eevee quickly.

            The SWAT team burst through the door and Umbreon ran in behind them. There were cages stacked in the room. They had to get every one of them out of there. Umbreon heard a radio crackle to life, “Reinforcements from Renir will arrive in about half an hour.”

            “Vaporeon!” Umbreon called out normally

            “Up here!” He heard a faint voice.

            Umbreon looked up to see Vaporeon on one of the tallest stacks, about 20 feet off the ground. How was Umbreon supposed to get up there? Umbreon worked out his route up as the SWAT members subdued the Team Rocket members. Umbreon climbed his way up to the stack of cages where Vaporeon was.

            “Where’s Eevee?” Umbreon said.

            “I don’t know. They took him away without a word. He isn’t in here, that’s all I know,” Vaporeon responded.

            Umbreon cursed under his breath. Eevee was still missing. “Did you keep these Pokémon in order?”

            “To the best of my abilities. I at least kept them from panicking by telling them we would be free soon.”

            “And that there is why I assigned you to help out here. By telling them that, you made a situation where every Pokémon here felt they were alone into one where you guys were all united.”

            “I did.”

            “Yes. Now I have to go find Eevee. More SWAT members will be here in under half an hour. See you free soon.”

            “Bye.”

            Umbreon went back down to the floor and scanned the building for Eevee. The base was an organized chaos of hallways and rooms. Umbreon caught sense of Eevee again, but he couldn’t locate it. Hours passed by after the reinforcements arrived. Word went out all across America that the stolen Pokémon were found, and to get to Renir as soon as possible. Whatever was the final travel cost, for the trip to Renir and back home, would be the fine for Team Rocket, and jail time. All they had to do was find the leader, but he was missing.

            Umbreon paced around the spot where he could sense Eevee close by, but couldn’t get to him. He had tried different ways and routes to get in, but to no avail. Pidgeot was with him too. The SWAT leader, who was walking around the base and making sure everything was okay, saw Umbreon pacing by a wall. He came up to him to see what was wrong.

            “What’s wrong?” He asked.

            “I can sense that Eevee is behind this wall, but I can’t get to him, and the TR leader is still missing too.” Umbreon replied.

            The SWAT leader went up to the wall and knocked on it. It just sounded like stone. The wall was made of concrete. The SWAT leader continued to go down the wall, knocking every few inches. Then the dull sound was amplified slightly. It was metal. There could be a door there.

            “I need some C4 to blast a door. We might have found the TR leader, but we can’t get to him.” He said.

            Umbreon and Pidgeot backed off around a corner as some men in full protective suits came down the hall with three packs of something. Umbreon covered his ears as he heard multiple people yell, “Fire in the hole!” Then there was a blast, followed by the sound of something falling. Umbreon realized that the blast could’ve hurt Eevee, if he was behind the door.

            As the dust settled, Umbreon came out from around the corner to see a battered metal plate and a hole in the wall. Natural light poured through. Did they find the outside wall? Umbreon went through with SWAT members behind him. He saw a row of windows and a lot of technology. There was a man sitting in a chair with an Eevee beside him. Not just any Eevee, the Eevee Umbreon and Pidgeot knew so well.

            “Hey Eevee!” Umbreon called out, “What are you doing over there?”

            The man, the TR leader responded for Eevee, “Hah. Eevee isn’t a friend of yours anymore. He’s mine now.”

            “How? How could you?”

            “All we had to do was put him into a Pokéball, stick it into a PC, and do some hacking, and, boom, we coded a new personality over his old one, so good luck getting him back. He works for me now.”

            “Were here to arrest you,” The SWAT leader said, aiming his submachine gun at the TR leader.

            “I can tell,” The man said, “Eevee, quick attack this Umbreon and teach him a lesson.”

            Eevee got to his feet and and charged forwards towards Umbreon, but Umbreon held still.

            “Eevee,” He said, “Listen to me. Come back to us. We’re your friends.”

            Eevee continued his charge. Umbreon, realizing that Eevee wasn’t stopping, moved to dodge to the left, but he was too late. Eevee hit him hard on his right front leg. Pain jolted through it as Umbreon thought he heard a _crack_. He fell to the floor and struggled to get up, but his leg hurt too much. He looked down at it, it was bent in a strange way. Eevee had just broken his upper and lower parts of his front right leg.

            Umbreon struggled to get to his paws, trying to get himself out of the way. He couldn’t do anything now. It was up to the SWAT team.

            “Eevee,” The man said, “I don’t like this man’s gun. Disarm him.”

            The gun was psychically pried from the hands of the SWAT leader and skid across the floor to where Eevee was sitting. The man made no move to get the gun. The other SWAT members rose their guns.

            “No need to shoot at me,” The man said, “I didn’t take your gun. Eevee did. If anything, you should shoot him. Eevee, pick up that gun.”

            Eevee psychically picked it up, using the traits of an Espeon and pointed the barrel towards the SWAT leader.

            “We need to take out this Eevee,” the SWAT leader said, “He could cause us more trouble than necessary.”

            The SWAT leader reached for his 9mm pistol on his belt. Umbreon knew the SWAT leader had fallen straight into the TR leader’s trap. The SWAT leader would kill Eevee, not ever having much care for Pokémon and putting his men first, but it would cause much pain for Umbreon and Pidgeot.

            Umbreon moved as fast as he could on three legs to get Eevee out of the way as the SWAT leader aimed his gun. Umbreon was had just gotten to Eevee to tackle him out of the way when the SWAT leader pulled the trigger. In real-time, the SWAT leader had only seen a black blur as he pulled the trigger to kill Eevee.

            Umbreon fell to the floor. Pidgeot saw a small pool of crimson liquid forming under him. Umbreon had taken the bullet in order to save Eevee’s life. It might have been the sight of Umbreon saving him, or the tang of blood in the air that brought Eevee back into reality. All he saw was he was in a new place, and Umbreon was laying on the ground just in front of him. Bleeding.

            “We need a first aid kit! Pronto!” The SWAT leader said, realizing his mistake too late.

            The blood reached Eevee’s paws. “He’s…dead?” Eevee said, “But he saved me. Why?”

 

Chapter 55

Stubborn

 

            Umbreon the bleeding was eventually stopped after a painfully long time. The bullet had struck him high on his chest by his right shoulder. The bullet was anti-personnel, so it breaks into seven pieces to maximize damage and get stuck in flesh. It was designed to kill humans, with a shot or two. He was alive, but me might not be for long. He was just barely clinging to life. Umbreon also had a makeshift splint to hold his broken leg straight during transport. It would be just half an hour before they could get to the Pokémon center in Renir.

            Just half a painful hour…

            Umbreon had lost a lot of blood, so the Umbreons at wherever the facility was where they were being tested and studied were going to give some to him. It was the only way to maximize his chance of survival. The only problem was that it would be almost 10 hours before it could get to the Renir Pokémon center.

 

———

           

            It took two days and one and a half liters of blood before Umbreon began to show signs of improvement. The make-shift splint had been replaced by a plaster cast that wrapped around his entire leg. It held it at a 10° angle bent at the knee. It would help him be able to walk, if he ever woke up.

            Eevee, in the middle of another sleepless night, heard something, a small movement. The sound of something shifting on fabric. Eevee looked up, unable to see through the darkness.

            “Eevee?” Umbreon said weakly, “You there?”

            “You’re awake,” Eevee said, relived.

            “Are you okay?” Umbreon asked.

            “Of course I am, but I should be asking you. So how are you doing?”

            “Not very well. My leg and shoulder hurts so much. Do you have memories of what happened, because how did you get back to normal?”

            “I do remember what happened. When the TR leader was commanding me to do something, my heart said not to, but my mind did it anyways, it was weird. I’m so sorry that I broke your leg. I didn’t know I had until yesterday. I don’t know what brought me back to reality though, but I remember looking down at you laying on the floor, and thinking you were dead.”

            “Don’t worry, I’m too stubborn to die.” Umbreon managed to joke.

            “They said you might not be able to use that leg again with the damage cause by the bullet.”

            “Well. Someone had to sacrifice something. I guess it’s okay.”

            “It isn’t though. Just think of what you can’t do now.”

            “You’re right. It really isn’t, but it’s too late now.”

            “So now what are we going to do?”

            “Do me a favor and leave me be, I’m exhausted and in pain. I need some sleep.”

            “But­—.”

            “Look at me. My rings aren’t glowing in the darkness. I need a lot of rest and recovery.”

            Eevee gave up. Umbreon knew best. Eevee realized he should get some sleep too now that he knows Umbreon is getting better.

 

Chapter 56

Vapor

 

            A week went by. Umbreon was getting much better with every day. He could walk around, but his broken leg was still in the cast, but the bullet fragments had been removed from his shoulder.  He walked awkwardly only using three of his legs, and he walked slowly too, but it was more of a limp. Umbreon wanted to see if all of the Pokémon they had freed were re-claimed by their owners.

            After much arguing, Umbreon was given permission to walk to a place just a couple blocks away to see them, if any of them were still there. Reports from yesterday said there were about ten out of 250 left. More than anything, Umbreon wanted to see Vaporeon, if he was still there.

            Umbreon took Eevee and Pidgeot and walked out of the Pokémon center into the daylight. Umbreon was glad to finally be back outside, the only problem was that the city was bustling with people. Umbreon kept to the side of the sidewalk closest to the fronts of the buildings. People looked at them and talked to each other as Umbreon limped down the street, with Eevee and Pidgeot close by.

            Umbreon followed the carefully set directions, and just over an hour and a half later, they reached their destination. It was a building overlooking a small, private park, fenced in by tall Plexiglas walls. Umbreon went to the entrance of the building, where there was a desk with a large list of crossed out names. There was a small bell on the desk. Umbreon took a quick look at the list to see what the names were. They were the names of Pokémon. Umbreon knew he was in the right place.

            “Pidgeot, go ring that bell,” Umbreon said.

            The bell rang as Pidgeot pecked it. Umbreon heard footsteps coming from down a hallway. A slim man stepped into the room wearing a blue shirt and tan pants.

            “This is where the Pokémon that were freed from Team Rocket are, right?” Umbreon asked immediately.

            The man looked at them strangely, “Yes?”

            “I need to see a Vaporeon, if there he is still here,” Umbreon said.

            “There’s only two left now,” The man said, “What happened to you, I heard rumors that you helped.”

            “I did help and I just got hurt in it; nothing to worry about.”

            Someone walked in behind him.

            “Hold on one second,” The man said.

            Umbreon, Eevee and Pidgeot waited as the the man talked with the trainer. Something looked familiar about him though. He was wearing a tan t-shirt and military-green cargo pants. Umbreon couldn’t see his face, so he wasn’t sure if it was who he thought it was. The trainer was too worried and too busy talking to the man to notice Umbreon, Eevee and Pidgeot. They finished their conversation, and the man turned towards him.

            “You can come with us too,” The man said, “There is a Vaporeon…”

            Umbreon lost track of what the man was saying as the trainer turned around to face the Pokémon he never knew were there. Umbreon recognized the face, and the clothing style. It was the trainer who had tried to capture him all those months ago. Umbreon didn’t trust him. Umbreon saw something flash in his eyes, probably recognition, or vengeance.

            Umbreon followed after the man, who lead them towards the small park in behind the building. The man opened the door and led inside the park. The trainer called out for a Pidgeot, and Umbreon heard the flapping of wings. A large Pidgeot appeared over one of the trees. The same one that the trainer had used to attack him in Murainn. Umbreon wondered if the trainer still wanted to capture him. The trainer left with his Pidgeot and Umbreon felt much safer.

            “Vaporeon!” Umbreon called out, “Are you in here?”

            Umbreon herd the bushes rustle and a Vaporeon walked out.

            “Hey Umbreon!” Vaporeon said, “…What happened to you?”

            “I ran into some trouble trying to rescue Eevee and got shot,” Umbreon replied.

            “How?” Vaporeon questioned, “It doesn’t sound very smart of you.”

            “Not smart? If I hadn’t gotten Eevee out of the way, he would be dead and I would feel terrible.”

            “Oh, but what about your leg?”

            “Eevee was brainwashed and attacked me. He broke my upper and lower leg before I was shot in the shoulder right above it.”

            “That sounds like it hurts.”

            “No kidding… I have a question.”

            “What is it?”

            “Is your trainer coming to get you?”

            “Probably not. He never liked me, I’m too weak for him.”

            “How about if he doesn’t pick you up in a week, you can join our team.”

            “I’ll think about it.”

            “Alright. It’s getting late, I think we should get going. I can’t walk well on three legs.”

            “Goodbye.”

            “See you in a week.” Umbreon was sure of it.

            Umbreon turned and limped out of the park and back over to where Eevee and Pidgeot were waiting.

            “Make sure we don’t run into the guy who picked up that Pidgeot,” Umbreon said, “He’s the guy who almost captured me in Murainn.”

            “Okay,” They responded as they went back out into the streets. They would be back in a week.

 

Chapter 57

WJF

 

            It had been a week since Umbreon last saw Vaporeon, and he was on his way back. He had gotten used to limping around on three legs and had gotten his pace up from a slow crawl to almost normal walking speed. Umbreon went inside the building where Vaporeon was. The same man was there.

            “Back for Vaporeon?” he asked.

            “If he is still here,” Umbreon responded.

            “He’s in the park,” The man said.

            Umbreon went to find Vaporeon in the small park. Pidgeot and Eevee followed.

            “Why do you want to talk to that Vaporeon so much?” Pidgeot asked.

            “Because he’s nice, neglected, and could be a fourth member of our little squad here,” Umbreon responded.

            “Are you sure?” Eevee asked.

            “I know I am,” Umbreon said.

            They walked into the park and Umbreon stopped near the entrance.

            “Vaporeon!” He called.

            Vaporeon surfaced in the middle of a pond near the side of the park. “Hello!” He called back.

            “You want to join us now?” Umbreon asked as Vaporeon got out of the water and approached them.

            “I don’t see why not, but how will we get around?” Vaporeon asked.

            “Walking,” Umbreon said.

            “So we are going to walk hundreds of miles to get around?”

            “Oh, sorry. For long distances, we fly.”

            “On Pidgeot here. Honestly, he looks a bit small.”

            “I’ll show you who’s small!” Pidgeot defended.

            “Ignore him,” Umbreon said calmly, “We fly in an airplane.”

            “That sounds cool! So you have a person fly you around?”

            “No. I’m the pilot.”

            “You can fly a plane?”

            “Why would I be a pilot if I couldn’t fly?”

            “I don’t know. How about I stop asking questions and join your team?”

            “Sounds like a great idea. Welcome to the squad.”

            “So what will we do now?” Vaporeon asked.

            “First, we have to wait until my leg is finished healing before we can get out of here.”

            They left to return to the Pokémon center where Umbreon had been staying for the past three and a half weeks. They only needed to stay there for about three more before Umbreon’s leg was healed. That night Umbreon had a dream about flying to the TR base.

            The next morning, Umbreon woke early and knew what he had been forgetting to do, he had to find that radio station and ask them where that lab was. Umbreon wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to though. He wanted to be like the rest of the Umbreon, but at the same time, he wanted to be different. _Maybe I can find out why I’m different and keep those differences. I should stay unique; stay myself._  Umbreon thought.

            Umbreon remembered that the station was called WJF, but he had no idea what and where it was. Again, he looked towards nurse Joy to tell him. Much more debating on why it was a good idea for him to go, he finally got directions on how to get to it. It was a few blocks away, near the center of the city in the opposite direction they went to get to Vaporeon.

            Umbreon waited for Eevee and Vaporeon to wake up, before forcing Pidgeot up, who always sleeps too long. Before heading out to one of the busiest parts of the city of Renir, Umbreon made a little plan just in case they ran into any trouble.

            “Okay,” Umbreon began, “Remember, this is just in case anyone attacks us trying to capture us, it has happened to me once before. Basically, you guys just need to protect each other. I will also fight to the best of my abilities.”

            “But I can’t fight well,” Vaporeon said.

            “Remember that this is just if,” Umbreon said, “And if it does happen, just fight the best you can. Everyone ready?”

            Everyone nodded.

            “Alright then, let’s go,” Umbreon said, walking out of the building.

            It was almost an hour and a half of nervous travel before they got to the tall building. It was a square, silvery skyscraper that rose high towards the clouds. On top of it was a large radio tower. Umbreon paused before entering.

            “I just realized something,” He said, “It may be a while before I can talk with whoever I need to.”

            “Why,” Eevee asked.

            “I have no idea how we talk to whoever it is we need to talk to,” Umbreon responded, “I don’t even know who it is we need to talk to.”

            “That would be a problem,” Pidgeot said, “Now what?”

            “At least we have to try,” Umbreon said as he pushed open the glass door.

            There was a large lobby with no people in it. A desk sat straight in front of him. Someone in a blue uniform was sitting and typing onto a computer. He didn’t notice the four Pokémon approach him. Umbreon lifted his front legs off the floor and put the one that wasn’t in a cast on the desktop, getting his head into view of the man.

            “Excuse me,” Umbreon said.

            “Hold on one second,” The man said, not lifting his head away from the computer.

            Umbreon waited as the man finished typing whatever he was doing and looked at Umbreon, his face expressing confusion and shock. “What are you doing here?” He asked.

            “I need to talk with someone here,” Umbreon said.

            “Why?”

            “I heard a small news article on other Umbreon a few weeks ago and I was curious where the lab they were talking about was.”

            “Okay. Can you at east tell me who you want to talk to?”

            “All I know is that it is someone from a news station; WJF 101.7 in Renir, which I was assuming is here. Am I wrong?”

            “No, you’re at the right place.”

            “So, when am I allowed to talk to whoever it is?”

            “Just follow me,” The man said as he got up and walked out of the small area behind the front desk.

            “Oh. I hope you don’t mind me having my friends come along with me. I need them for help and protection.”

            The man turned around, noticing the Pidgeot, Vaporeon and Eevee with Umbreon. “I guess it’s okay.”

            Umbreon limped after the man as he walked down a hall. He stopped at a metal door and pushed a button. The door opened, revealing a small room on the inside. The man walked in.

            Umbreon walked reluctantly into the room, his friends followed him. Umbreon saw the man push another button. The doors closed. Umbreon felt that something wasn’t right. Umbreon sensed the room move downwards a few millimeters. Then he felt the room rocket upwards. He didn’t like it in here. He didn’t know where he was going and how fast. Umbreon saw that his friends were uneasy about it too.

            Umbreon had gotten used to the speed and was starting to get comfortable in the room when the accent slowed down to a stop, making him feel light on his feet for a second. The door opened, revealing a completely different room. The man walked out and Umbreon followed him. The entire floor was dedicated to radio. Umbreon could see through windows that there were many soundproof rooms with people talking into microphones.

            Umbreon followed as the man walked down to a door and paused outside of it. “Enter quietly,” He said.

            Umbreon noticed a sign above the door that was lit by a red light. The sign read ‘ON AIR.’

            The man opened the door and Umbreon and his three friends entered almost silently. There was a man sitting at a large desk with many switches, slides, buttons, and small lights. There was a large window with someone sitting in a room behind it, talking into a microphone. It was a woman wearing dark blue jeans and a red V-neck t-shirt. Umbreon could barely hear through the soundproof walls, but the she said, “We’ll be back after a quick break. 101.7 WJF.”

            Some of the lights on the control board as the man switched a couple of switched and pressed a button. The door between the rooms opened and the woman walked out as the man controlling the board turned around.

            “I have guest for you,” the man from the front desk said, motioning down to Umbreon.

            “Hello,” Umbreon said nervously. He didn’t know what to expect from these people.

            The woman spoke first. “Oh. I did a radio article on Umbreon earlier, and I used you as a comparison.”

            “And that is why I am here,” Umbreon said, “I want to know where the lab is because I want to know what is different about me.”

            “Well, we are having a slow news day… So why don’t we have a little interview before I tell you.”

            Umbreon sighed. He didn’t want to go back into the harsh eye of the public, but he wanted to find out where that lab was. Umbreon turned to face Eevee, Pidgeot and Vaporeon. He spoke non-psychically so that the people wouldn’t understand them.          

            “I don’t really want to do this, but I want to find out what is wrong… er, different about me,” Umbreon said.

            “Do you really have to?” Eevee asked.

            “Good question,” Umbreon responded, buying him a little bit of time to think about his response, “I realized when I heard the article on the radio just how little I actually knew about myself. I want to find out why I’m so different.”

            “I guess you do if you really want to know more about yourself,” Vaporeon said.

            Umbreon turned back to the people and spoke psychically. “I’ll do it. I guess,” He said.

            “Great!” The woman said, “We have less than a minute to get set up. Let’s go into the room. Your friends can wait out here.”

            “Great,” Umbreon said quietly, “Who’s going to try to kill me after this?”

 

Chapter 58

Radio

 

            “Welcome back 101.7 WJF,” the woman said, “We have just gotten a very special guest here today and we will be interviewing him right now. How are you today Fury?”

            “Just about as well as usual,” Umbreon said.

            “I see you have a cast on your leg. What happened?”

            “It’s complicated. Do you want the full story?”

            “Sure.”

            “Well. When I was at the Indigo league championships, Eevee went missing on the last day. When we went to look for the plane, because we suspected that something was wrong there, it was gone. It was there that we heard a radio broadcast that gave us enough information to start searching.”

            “How much info was given out.”

            “I just heard that the plane was somewhere south of where I was and Eevee was with them. Pidgeot gave me a ride and we eventually found a small base where I could sense Eevee in it. When I went to free Eevee, I was captured too, but managed to escape. When I was in captivity, I found myself with about a hundred or so illegally captured Pokémon. I managed to get Eevee and find my plane, but I was separated from Eevee and had to leave with only Pidgeot and myself.

            “We flew to Santa Fe, where we fixed what was wrong with the plane, after Team Rocket, the group who captured Eevee, tried to sabotage it so I would crash. I got enough support from the police to get a SWAT team, where we went back to the base, but no one was there anymore, and the Pokémon were gone too.

            “We went back to a base with a large radar, just in time to see the suspected cargo plane carrying the missing Pokémon vanish off of the map because of low altitude. We assumed where it landed was a base we needed to go to. After a full night’s rest, we headed off the next morning. On the flight to find the base is when I heard the article about the Umbreon.”

            “Did you listen to the part about Espeons?” The woman asked.

            “I would prefer if that name was not mentioned while I am here. It’s another long story, but it’s quite personal.”

            “Okay then,” She said suspiciously.

            “So we landed at the base and immediately began the intrusion of the base, where we found about 250 Pokémon stacked in cages in a dark room. The newest member of our team was there, Vaporeon. I had assigned him when I was trying to free Eevee at the last base to keep everyone together and watch Eevee just in case either one of us never made it out.

            “We moved on from the room. We were going to subdue all of the TR personnel and find the leader before we would get to the time consuming task of freeing all of the Pokémon. I found a locked door with the help of a SWAT member by being able to sense Eevee, but just barely. As we soon found out, they have the ability to code a new personality for a Pokémon, which they did for Eevee.

            “We broke into the room and found the TR leader and Eevee. Eevee was ordered to attack me, but I didn’t believe that they could change a friend to be an enemy. I got out of the way too late and Eevee hit only my leg, breaking the upper and lower bones. I was out of the battle as soon as it began.

            “The man commanded Eevee to take his gun, which he did psychically, using the traits of an­– excuse me, Espeon. The SWAT leader took it as a threat when Eevee aimed the gun back at them— I would too if I was in that situation. The TR leader calmly convinced the SWAT leader to shoot Eevee instead of him, because he wasn’t in control of the gun, Eevee was. I saw the TR leader’s plan. It was to cause pain for Pidgeot and I, but I wasn’t just going to lay there and watch my friend die.

            “As soon as I saw the SWAT leader reach for his 9mm, I was on the move. As fast as I could on three legs, I half ran, half limped, towards Eevee to knock him out of the way. My reduced mobility hurt me in the form of a bullet striking me high in the chest, near the shoulder of the leg that was broken. I was unconscious instantly, but the SWAT team freed the Pokémon, arrested the TR leader. I was instantly taken to a Pokémon center, where I eventually recovered.

            “The bullet fragments were removed, but my shoulder might be too damaged to use. There was one factor that saved my life though. The bullet was designed to break into seven different pieces to maximize effectiveness. It separates and is too small to have great effectiveness. What needs to be done is have the bullet expand, but not break apart. If the bullet’s tip curls outwards, then there is more internal damage, meaning more stopping power.”

            “That is an interesting story, but where did you get the fact about bullets?” The woman asked.

            “I came up with it myself. Even though I was unconscious for two days, my mind was still working fine. It is at strange moments like those that I come up with the most random things.”

            “Where did you originally come from?”

            “I came from the middle of the timeless desert. By the old Base No. 12.”

            “Were you originally an Umbreon, and did you ever get lost and find out if the myth that time speeds up, but ageing doesn’t?”

            “Well, I guess you’re asking for another long story then.”

            “I’m just curious.”

            “Isn’t everyone. Anyways, I was just an Eevee, living in a small cave with my mother and father. The year, as I later found out, was 1942. The Base No. 12 was buzzing with activity and bomber training missions. I was always curious of them. Every day, I went closer and closer to the base, until, one day, I went inside.

            “I became interested in it because of the large planes flying around, and because I smelled food. A huge storm had come by not long before and wiped out most of our resources. I had a brother and a sister, but they both starved to death.”

            Umbreon was silent for a second.

            “Are you okay?” She asked.

            “Just a little lost in thought,” Umbreon said, “Let me continue.”

            “Inside the base, everyone there liked me. They started to give my food. I ate some and then brought the majority back to my parents. My father didn’t like me going in the base, but it brought back food, so I was allowed to go.

            “One day, completely out of the blue, my father went insane, maybe it was because we lived in the middle of a desert where no other Pokémon of our type was, maybe it wasn’t.” Umbreon paused again. “Sorry… He went insane and killed my mother before threatening me and running off. I was on my own. So I went to the only place I knew other than home. The base.

            “I always wanted to see what it was like to fly, so one day, I snuck onto a bomber, a B-17. I thought it was another training mission, but it was actually going to Britain to another base for the war. And yes I am talking about World War Two. Later, when I had remembered my past. I seemed to lose my memory later after I escaped from the war and got lost in the desert after a return flight gone wrong.

            “I found a journal later that read, and I quote whoever wrote this:

‘June 19th, 1942,

            I saw the Eevee who likes to hang around the airfield get in one of the bombers that was headed out to Britain. I wanted to stop him. He looked young and starving. There was nothing I could do to stop the Eevee from going to the war, as the plane left before I could get out to it. I always wondered If it would come back.’

            “That was long after it was written. I found it just last year.”

            “Is this really true?”

            “It is, but if you don’t want to believe it, there is no way to convince you other than I was the one who had to _live_ through this. Why would I need to lie about this on top of everything else?

            “I got to the base in Britain and was desperate to get home, I had no idea what I would do in the midst of WWII. I went on a bomber, thinking it would get me back home, but it led me straight into the warzone. I was found a few hours into the flight, so I had nothing to hide from anymore. I sat on a space between the two pilots, hoping I would get home. Soon the drone of the engines was drowned out by the sound of gunfire. I wasn’t going home; I was going on a bombing raid.

            “I watched as the sky filled with dots of black smoke. Bombers left and right were catching fire, exploding, or just falling out if the sky. Smaller planes zipped by, some shooting at us and some shooting the planes that were shooting us.

            “We made it home, and I was so scared. I had become a sort of mascot at the base. No other Pokémon would just stay there, and definitely not something as small and skittish as an Eevee.

            “I was desperate to get home, but every time I went on a plane, I was met with the same sights as the first time. I soon became more comfortable on the missions and I soon became the Lucky Eevee. Whichever plane I flew in would definitely return to the base.”

            “Do you mean you are the Lucky Eevee? Like the one in the war?”

            “That’s exactly what I mean.”

            “So why are you an Umbreon now?”

            “I evolved. I managed to get back home on a bomber, but it fell out of the sky when it was near the base. I was ejected from the plane on impact, everyone else on board died.”

            “You’ve really seen a lot of death.”

            “I come close to it myself too, unfortunately on more than one occasion. Now to continue, I was disoriented by the crash and wandered off into the desert, where I got lost and time started to slip away. I was so unhappy. I traveled only at night to escape the hot desert sun. The moon was what guided me through my journey to get out of the desert. Food was scarce, water was scarcer. Yet for some reason, I evolved.

            “I don’t understand why now. It was night, yes, but I wasn’t a high level and I was very unhappy. I managed to make it out of the desert, forgetting that time would slip away. I left the desert 84 years after I got lost, where I was attacked by Spearrows and saved by Pidgeot and Eevee over there.”

            “Do you know why you have those icy blue rings instead of the yellow ones on normal Umbreon?”

            “I originally had the normal yellow rings, but on an attempt to find an old friend who had gone off with a trainer, someone tried to capture me in the middle of Murainn. I actually saw him getting his Pidgeot at the place the Pokémon were staying until their trainers could pick them up after freeing them from TR. That Pidgeot is huge too, probably twice the size of a normal one.

            “Anyways, we battled, but he eventually tired me out and tried to capture me in a Pokéball. I summoned all of my remaining energy and used hyper beam to try and get out. The Pokéball had assumed I had given up and was about halfway done with transferring me into data to be stored in the pokéball. The hyper beam overloaded the Pokéball and exploded, reordering the data so I look like this. It also rebuffed my stats so I had more than enough energy to escape.”

            “Why are you psychic, unlike all of the other Pokémon, is it because of the data change?”

            “I honestly have no idea. I was like that before.”

            “Do you have anything to add on a personal note before you leave?”

            “I do, if you’re okay with me saying it.”

            “I’m okay with it.”

            “Okay then, if you really want me to. This is a message for all of the humans who hate me, who have gone after me, and even tried to kill me.

            “I don’t see your problem with difference. I have never tried to hurt anyone, but only do something that has never been done before. I have come face to face with death so many more times than you can imagine. I stare straight at its face and make it back down. I have seen so many things that you haven’t.

            “I _was_ in the war, World War Two, and I _am_ that Lucky Eevee. You can look it up, Eevee base in Britain. I have been shot at so many times by many people. Anything from 9mm to 30 and 50 calibers, and 20 to 30 millimeter autocannons designed to take down aircraft. I am not the type who will give up.

            “I can fly, yes, and I have stolen the fuel to get around. That may have dug a small divot in someone’s bank account, but it is nowhere close to killing someone. I may be a Pokémon, but I still have feelings, I still have friends, I used to have a family, but they’re all dead. I had to kill my own father, who I found much later when he was an Espeon. It was kill or be killed. That is the only time I have killed, and it wasn’t a human, and it was threatening my life.

            “Consider yourselves lucky that I haven’t gone after anyone yet. I am not something that can soak up all the beating I have gotten and just keep going. My anger is vented in battle, if anyone was wondering why I can get so powerful. I should be dead, but I’m not. I am a living, thinking, breathing Pokémon and I can’t take everything that is thrown at me. I dodge some, I can resist some, but sometimes you get hit so hard you’re knocked out after one hit.

            “With that. I would like to thank you for having me here. Goodbye.”

 

Chapter 59

Snapped

 

            Umbreon got off the stool and limped over to the door as the woman finished the broadcast. When she was done, Umbreon was let out. Pidgeot, Eevee and Vaporeon heard the entire thing. Umbreon was forgot that Vaporeon didn’t know about his crazy past.

            “I don’t think you had to say all of that,” Pidgeot said, “You went far into your past that you really didn’t have to go to. Why don’t you just forget about it?”

            “Sometimes, the best way to solve a problem is to face it head-on,” Umbreon replied, “Let’s go, I’m done with this place. We’ve been stuck here for a month.

            “Is all of that really true?” Vaporeon asked.

            “All of what?” Umbreon asked.

            “Is it true you were in World War Two, that you killed your father, and that you basically defy all logical explanation of why you’re here?”

            “It is. That is most of my crazy past. I don’t know why I’m still here. I thought I would’ve given up if things got any more difficult, but here I am, even with my leg being broken and being shot and almost bleeding out and so much more, I am still here. Let’s get going before something else happens. Also, I apologize. I had forgotten you didn’t know about my past.”

            They made their way towards the elevator. They reached the metal door and Umbreon reached up and pressed a button. The button glowed until the door opened. Umbreon walked in, followed by everyone else. The doors closed, but they couldn’t figure out how to get down to the ground. Umbreon noticed a bunch of buttons on the wall. He looked at them, trying to figure out which one would get them down. He pressed the button with a one and a star on it.

            Umbreon was prepared for the elevator to go up, for some reason, because that was the only way he had experienced it move. Instead, it started descending, causing them all to be surprised. Umbreon relaxed as he felt that the descent was slow and controlled. Umbreon saw that Vaporeon was still worried about the elevator.

            “Don’t worry,” Umbreon said, “It’s controlled. It isn’t meant to go too fast.

            “Okay,” Vaporeon said.

            Umbreon felt a small jolt.

            “Did you feel that?” Vaporeon asked.

            “Don’t get stressed again. It isn’t perfectly smooth,” Umbreon said.

            The elevator suddenly went dark as the floor seemed to drop out from under them. They were falling. Umbreon panicked along with the rest of them, but they heard a loud clicking sound and the scraping of metal as the elevator suddenly shuddered to a stop. They were suspended over 200 feet from the bottom of the elevator shaft. Umbreon’s glowing rings provided the only light.

            “You said not to worry!” Vaporeon shouted.

            “Alright calm down! I never knew this would happen,” Umbreon said as calmly as he could.

            “What do we do now?” Eevee asked.

            “First, we asses our situation,” Umbreon said, “Okay. We are currently trapped in an elevator high in a building, with no way out.”

            “That helped,” Pidgeot said sarcastically.

            “Someone will notice sooner or later that the elevator is broken,” Umbreon said, “Or we could find another way out.”

            “Like what?” Vaporeon asked.

            “I’m not sure. It would help if I didn’t have this stupid cast.”

            “I’m sorry,” Eevee said.

            “It’s not your fault. You weren’t in control.”

            Umbreon went over to the side of the small room and hit the cast against the wall.

            “Don’t break it!” Eevee shouted, “What if your leg is still broken.”

            “If it was broken, I would be in pain from the impact, but everything is okay, so I don’t need this anymore.”

            Umbreon hit the cast against the wall and it cracked. Giving him enough of a fracture to pry the rest off. Bits of plaster laid on the floor.

            “Second, after we asses our situation, we make a plan,” Umbreon said.

            “Isn’t our plan to wait until someone finds out about us?” Vaporeon asked.

            “Well, I don’t want to be stuck here for a while, so I’m going to try to find a way out.”

            “How?” Eevee asked.

            “If we can’t go down, we go up.”

            “Good point,” Eevee responded.

            Umbreon pulled himself onto the small railing, giving himself enough room to boost himself up the the plaster ceiling. When he hit it, it lifted, revealing whatever was outside of the elevator. He managed to push the plaster out of the way and climb on top of the elevator.

            “It might get dark down there with me up here,” Umbreon said, “Sorry.”

            “It’s fine of we can get out of here,” Pidgeot said, “Do you know what went wrong?”

            Umbreon looked for an answer. There was rigging that looked like a cable of some sort should be on it.

            “I think there should be a cable that makes the elevator go up and down, but all that’s left is the frayed remains of one,” Umbreon reported.

            “Well there’s your problem!” Vaporeon called out.

Umbreon saw a crack of light a few feet above the top of the elevator. He climbed onto a small ledge, using some piece of metal in the elevator shaft to stabilize himself. It was the backside of one of the doors to get out of the elevator. There was no way he could open it, so he did the next best thing.

            Umbreon started banging on the door as hard as he could, making a loud bang. Someone had to hear it. Umbreon stopped after a little while to take a quick break and stabilize himself. He heard someone on the other side of the door.

            “Do you need help in there?” someone called.

            “Yes!” Umbreon responded psychically, “The elevator stopped and we can’t get out!”

            “Don’t worry!” the person called, “Help will be there soon.”

            Umbreon went back down to the top of the elevator and over to a gap where he could see his friends below.

            “I got someone’s attention and they said help will be here soon,” Umbreon said.

            “Great,” Pidgeot said, “We can get out of here.”

            Umbreon heard noise at the door.

            “I think they’re getting it open!” He said enthusiastically.

            “Thanks,” Vaporeon said.

            Light flooded the elevator shaft as some people pried open the door. Umbreon saw four people looking into the elevator shaft. They all looked confused.

            “What are you doing in there, Fury?” one asked.

            “Did you break the cable?” another one accused.

            “I was talked into an interview with WJF and I was trying to get back down when this happened,” Umbreon said, “I didn’t break it, why would I trap myself and my friends?”

            “There’s more of you?” the first one asked.

            “There’s Pidgeot, Vaporeon and Eevee down there,” Umbreon said, “I climbed up here to get help. So could you do us a favor and get us something to get my friends out of here?”

            “I know where a small ladder is,” one of them said.

            “Don’t do it!” The same man who accused him of braking the elevator said. “We can’t trust him up here!”

            “The sooner you get the ladder, the sooner we can leave,” Umbreon said, “And why would I do all of this to hurt you. I don’t even know who you guys are!”

            The man came back with the ladder and placed it in the elevator shaft. Umbreon took it and managed to slide it down to his friends, who climbed up the steep steps. The men watched as an Eevee, a Vaporeon, and a Pidgeot appeared next to Umbreon. They went through the open door and out of the Elevator shaft.

            “Thank you,” Umbreon said, “Where’s the stairs?”

            “Down the hall to the left,” one of them said.

            Umbreon, Eevee, Pidgeot and Vaporeon all went over to the stairs and walked down 24 flights. They swiftly exited the building and walked out onto the city streets.

            “We’re going to stay here one more night,” Umbreon said, “And then we’ll leave.”

            “Do you think nurse Joy will be happy about you breaking your cast off?” Eevee asked.

            “Probably not, but it’s fine now,” Umbreon said.

 

Chapter 60

North

 

            Umbreon, Eevee, Pidgeot and Vaporeon left early the next morning without telling anyone. They had to walk 13 miles to the TR base, where their plane was still sitting. It had been fully fueled and was ready for a swift departure. The base was deserted and dusty.

            “Why did we come here?” Vaporeon asked, “I thought we were leaving.”

            “Do you know how we get around?” Umbreon asked.

            “No,” Vaporeon responded.

            “Then you’ll see,” Umbreon said as he started to approach the plane a few hundred feet away.

            Everyone followed him up to the plane.

            “Don’t tell me,” Vaporeon said sarcastically, “This is how you get around.”

            “Yes,” Umbreon replied seriously.

            “There is no way that you can fly this,” Vaporeon said.

            “He does,” Pidgeot said.

            “We fly in it all the time. He’s a great pilot,” Eevee said, “Most of the time.”

            “Just jump up and into the cockpit,” Umbreon said from up on the plane.

            Pidgeot and Eevee went to their spots in the plane, leaving Vaporeon on the ground.

            “Are you coming?” Umbreon asked.

            Vaporeon stared at him blankly.

            “You want to leave, right?” Umbreon shouted.

            “Sorry,” Vaporeon said, “I am, but I just don’t get how you can fly this.”

            Vaporeon jumped into the cockpit. Umbreon closed the door.

            “How does this move?” Vaporeon asked.

            “You’ll see,” Umbreon said.

            Umbreon started the twin engine and they roared to life. Umbreon increased the throttle and the plane went forwards slowly. Umbreon taxied towards the end of the runway.

            “Is this as fast as it goes?” Vaporeon asked, “Because I don’t see how we are going to fly at five miles an hour.”

            “It’s maximum cruise speed is 560mph and it can withstand speeds of about 700mph,” Umbreon said, “This is the fastest propeller-driven aircraft in the world.”

            Umbreon whirled the plane around and stopped. The nose pointed straight down the runway. Umbreon lowered the flaps to takeoff position.

            “I forgot that you don’t have a harness,” Umbreon said, “I hope you are good at holding on to something.”

            “Why—?”

            Vaporeon was cut off as Umbreon pushed the throttle to full and the plane lurched forward. The plane quickly gained speed and was soon off of the ground. Umbreon made an aggressive 180 turn to make the course line up with the destination.

            “Where are we going?” Eevee asked.

            “We are going to make an early morning stop at Murainn, probably around 2am, and head up north to train. We could all use some good training,” Umbreon said.

            “How fast are we going now?” Vaporeon asked a few minutes later, after Umbreon had reached the cruise altitude of 14,000 feet.

            Umbreon looked down at the controls, “Exactly 557 miles per hour.”

            “I take whatever I said about this being slow back,” Vaporeon said.

            It was already dark as Umbreon flew East.

 

———

 

            Umbreon touched down at the real airport in Murainn, complete with lights. Everyone else was asleep.

            “Wake up!” Umbreon said, “We have to be out of here in less than 20 minutes without being seen!”

            Eevee and Pidgeot knew what he was talking about, but Vaporeon didn’t.

            “What are we doing?” Vaporeon asked.

            “‘Borrowing’ fuel,” Umbreon said.

            “Oh. Okay. I’ll just stay in here,” Vaporeon said.

            “That’s fine with me.”

            Umbreon parked the pane next to a fuel truck and they efficiently exited the plane and started filling the plane with fuel. After just over 15 minutes later, they dragged the hose back over to the truck. Umbreon saw something on the truck that he didn’t notice before. It said ‘Grade A Jet,’ when it should’ve said ‘Gasoline.’

            Umbreon hurried back to the plane, there was nothing they could do now. Umbreon started the engines. They ran fine, for now. The fuel tank they were getting their fuel from was completely full of gasoline, but all of the other ones had jet fuel in them. Umbreon hoped that it would work similarly.

            Umbreon quickly taxied the plane back onto the runway and took off as quickly as possible. He flew over the city of Murainn and headed North. They had about an hour and a half of flight before the gasoline ran out and the jet fuel would be used instead. Umbreon debated whether to tell then, just in case something went wrong, or not tell them.

            “Hey guys,” Umbreon said.

            “Yea?” Pidgeot said.

            “Uh… Back in Murainn, we didn’t put the right fuel the plane,” Umbreon said.

            “We seem to be fine right now,” Eevee said.

            “We are using the last of the gasoline now, it’ll be over an hour before we run out of it,” Umbreon said.

            “So then what?” Vaporeon asked.

            “I think there will be a reduction in power because, I think, the fuel we added, jet fuel, is heavier, and harder to burn.”

            “That doesn’t sound bad,” Eevee said.

            They flew on towards Canada, until they were over the border and flying towards the arctic circle. It wasn’t winter, but it was unusually cold. Umbreon began to descend through the clouds to search for a possible landing spot. All he saw were tall pine trees. There were no clearings anywhere. The plane was also quite heavy for a landing; the jet fuel was weighing it down.

            Umbreon was concentrating on the ground below when he felt the plane start to slow unexpectedly. The jet fuel was now being fed into both engines.

            “There’s the reduction in power,” Umbreon said.

            But the engines continued to lose power until he was virtually gliding through the air.

            “Did you mean a complete cut-off of power?” Eevee asked.

            “No, I didn’t,” Umbreon said, increasing the throttle to full to see if that would help.

            “Something seems to be leaking out of the engines,” Pidgeot pointed out.

            Umbreon saw a liquid coming from the engine bays.

            “Well, the fuel has stopped burning and has flooded the engines,” Umbreon said, “As long as the propellers are still turning, the engine is still running, even if no power is being made.”

            “So where will we land?” Vaporeon asked.

            “My biggest concern is that the spark plugs will manage to ignite the—,” Umbreon was cut off.

            _BANG!_

            The right engine exploded into flame, making the situation even more critical. They had almost no time to get the plane on the ground. Umbreon decided to call for help with the radio.

            “Mayday! U07 lost power to both engines; engine two is in flames!” Umbreon frantically called.

            Another loud _BANG_ echoed through the plane. The same thing just happened to engine one.

            “Mayday! U07 engine one is also in flames! We are going down!”

            Umbreon spotted a lake below them.

            “Is there any way you can reach the airport five miles ahead of you if you continue your heading?” The radio said back.

            “There is no way. We have less than a mile of flight distance left here!” Umbreon said.

            Umbreon noticed a switch that said fuel dump. He remembered that it could dump all of the fuel in less than five seconds in emergencies. He switched it and hatches opened on all the fuel tanks and the fuel poured out.

            The flames from the burning engines ignites most of the fuel, creating a large fireball behind them. At least it was behind them now. The burning engines extinguished themselves without any fuel. They were a little safer than they were before. Umbreon turned the plane around and aimed for the lake. Eevee took the initiative and feathered the propellers.

            “You’re great at flying,” Vaporeon said.

            “Is that sarcasm?” Umbreon asked.

            “No,” Vaporeon relied seriously, “I thought we were going to burn the death there.”

            “We might drown if I don’t do this part correctly,” Umbreon said.

            “What part?” Eevee asked.

            “We have to land in the water,” Umbreon said, “Now be quiet so I can focus…. Oh, and brace for impact.”

            Umbreon lowered the flaps to combat. It looked like Umbreon came out of the turn too low and might not make it back to the large lake they flew over. The propellers spun silently. Umbreon wished they still had power.

            Umbreon extended the flaps to takeoff position. It looked like they would hit the tops of the trees before getting to the lake. Extending the flaps gave them just enough altitude to clear the trees, now he had to make perfect landing.

            He angled the plane up just before he hit the water. He felt the tail strike the water and skip on the surface as the rest of the plane was just about to hit the water. The plane tilted slightly to the left just when they hit the water. The left wing struck the water, rotating the plane harshly as it came to a quick stop.

            Umbreon came out of shock as he realized the plane was sinking slightly. It was tilting back and to left as water was came in through the ruptured tail and the broken left wing. Umbreon quickly opened the wet cockpit canopy.

            “Get onto the right wing,” Umbreon said.

            They quickly gathered on the right wing. Umbreon felt the temperature start to drop. He looked northeast to see a wall of white. Eevee saw it too.

            “Is that… snow?” He asked.

            “Looks like it,” Umbreon said, “But it’s the middle of summer.”

Umbreon knew that it was either Eevee or himself that couldn’t get to dry land before the storm reached them. It was moving very fast.

            “Pidgeot. You fly Eevee to the shore over there, and Vaporeon, you swim after him as fast as possible,” Umbreon commanded.

            Vaporeon and Pidgeot noticed the storm.

            “But what about you. I can get you with all of that snow,” Pidgeot protested.

            “It is going to be a complete white-out. I’ll be fine out here. I’ll be cold, but okay,” Umbreon said.

            Pidgeot took Eevee and flew off. Vaporeon swam through the water behind them. Umbreon saw them reach the shore over a minute later. He got back into the cockpit and closed the canopy to give himself extra protection from the storm. He was trapped between a raging snowstorm and rising water. He was tired from flying thought the night, but he had to stay awake.

            The water stopped rising for some reason as the plane was held at a strange list towards the left and rear. He forced himself to sleep in the cold plane as the temperature continued to drop. Umbreon hoped that his friends found shelter. All he could do was wait for the storm to be over.


End file.
